That’s how I get to it, too. I also replace the regular Google Play Store app on my phone’s home screen with the My apps widget:
- Long-press the Play Store icon in the launcher.
- In the pop-up menu, press-and-hold My apps, drag it to the home screen, and let go to get a 1×1 launcher widget that looks like a regular app icon.
- If I have a regular Play Store icon on my home screen to before starting this process, then drag this widget to a temporary location, remove the Play Store icon, and drag the new widget into its place.
- If I didn't start this process with a Play Store icon, then place this new widget wherever is convenient.
- Now there's a My apps icon that I can tap on my phone's home screen to go straight into the Manage apps & device screen in the Google Play Store app, and it immediately checks for pending updates when I do so. (Sometimes I have to close Play Store and tap the My apps icon a second time to get it to check for updates, but that's still faster for me than launching Play Store and navigating to updates from its home screen.)
It looks like this:
That makes checking available updates much easier for me, especially for those things (like Wyze app) where I have Enable auto update disabled, as @ronl4625 demonstrated.