Taking Control of Your Push-Notifications

I tend to get distracted by notifications a lot. May it be a push notification that reminds me of a calendar event, an instant-message I receive from someone I know or eBay reminding me of an item I could be interested in buying on their behalf. I used to swipe them away trying to keep doing what I was doing until then. But it’s not that simple; I give up concentration to a piece of information that is usually not helpful at the moment I receive the notification. It steals my time, and moreover, it steals my concentration/flow.

So what can be done about it? Turn off the notifications? I tried that. For some apps on my phone that worked fine, but for others I began looking at the app to see if there was a new message — just in case! Usually there wasn’t, so shutting off the notifications all together was not very effective.

Then I realized Apple offered me several ways of restricting notifications on my phone. I usually didn’t bother and turned them all on or off, depending on some helpfulness/distraction quotient. But there is a middle way!

I discovered that turning off all notifications BUT the badges on the icons works excellently for me! I don’t get distracted when I am working on something else, yet don’t miss any notifications. I have to further see if that works for all apps equally well or for some better than others, but so far, I am pretty happy!

In addition to that, I began making Airplane-mode my default mode when I want to be undistracted or even turn it off. It’s a comfortable feeling to know that no matter what, my phone will not interface with the connected world for some time. I can really recommend putting your phone in airplane mode when you’re on the go, meeting people or planning to read something on the train. It’s such an easy way to create some moments of quality-time, and to practice a little bit of mindfulness every now and then.

By putting a little emphasis on managing my attention, I quickly felt like I had more time. Oftentimes it is not time we lack, but rather the energy we need to do what we want. I attribute this personal finding to a video by Tim Ferris that I watched a few days back. I recommend watching it!