This configuration is killing your productivity
Notifications are the superpower of companies behind the apps on your phone
I’ve been reading about productivity for more than two years. If I have to highlight only one thing that stands out in most of the articles is focus.
You can find it in many forms, like avoid distractions, don’t multitask, declutter your (physical and virtual) environment, have long periods of uninterrupted work, and so on. I’ve been trying to apply these concepts, and they work perfectly.
Side note: If you still believe in the lie that multitasking is possible or a good idea, watch this video:
Speaking of distractions, we have one thing that is constantly asking for attention, making sounds, and trying to distract us from our duties (no, it’s not your kid). Our phone.
We give this little device the power to distract us, constantly calling for our attention through notifications and sounds, killing our performance.
If you think I’m with the dumb phone movement, no, there’s another (and much cheaper) option to deal with phone distractions: apps and notifications.
Declutter your installed apps
From the release of the App Store (same with Android), it seems we need an app for everything. I don’t blame you if you installed that airline application only to use it once (and it’s still installed), but having more applications means more distractions. Let’s forget about storage space and potential data leaks (valid points), but thinking about focus, having more apps means having more options to get distracted and more notifications.
Most unused apps will remain silent and won’t send any notifications if you don’t interact with them. However, you can still benefit from the virtual declutter of having fewer applications. Depending on your configuration or operating system (iOS or Android), you may have a long list of applications to go through, preventing you from quickly finding what you were looking for.
A sub-point of this could be to organize your applications for your convenience (not distractions), having the essential applications on the home screen. If you have an iPhone, I recommend you to have only one home screen, removing the apps that may distract you, like social media. You can do almost the same thing on Android. If you want to open another app, use the search function.
The point is to remove unnecessary apps that may distract you, prevent unwanted notifications, and organize what you have to maximize productivity.
This is how my home screen looks like:
Configure notifications
Notifications are the superpower of companies behind the applications installed on your phone. They use it to generate and increase engagement, aka, distract you. I’m not only talking about Instagram or LinkedIn but also things like “urgent” messages from WhatsApp or Slack. And I used quotes because they’re usually not that urgent or important.
Allowing those apps to notify you gives them the power to decide your priorities.
You can breathe because it’s not all lost. You can get that power back if you properly configure your phone.
Decide who has the power
The first step towards notification freedom is to make a conscious decision about what apps will have the power to interrupt you.
In my case, I have notifications enabled only for WhatsApp, Calendar and Calls. That’s because I want to receive notifications from my wife if she writes me and work-related calendar events. That will vary depending on your needs and priorities.
It’s not about apps. It’s about priorities.
The definition must be based on your priorities, and understand what those things mean. For example, suppose you enable Slack notifications because your priority is to be available for your team whenever they need you. In that case, I would like to ask you some questions: Do you really need to be always available? Don’t you need to do your work rather than being interrupted by a random person?
Most of the time, you must rethink how you get interrupted and if that’s a priority in your life. In the example above, maybe you need to focus on your own output and help your teammates in a particular moment of the day that allows you to have uninterrupted focus.
You need to make your own decision, but I recommend disabling social media notifications and keeping the messaging apps at the minimum necessary. Focus on the bigger distractors first.
Know the options
I have an iPhone, and it allows you to define notification schedules through Focus profiles (Settings > Focus), and even a summary to digest all apps in a single place (Settings > Notifications > Scheduled Summary). Android devices should have the same (maybe you need an app like Daywise or similar).
Under Settings, you can select an app you want to configure (for example, you can go to Settings > Medium > Notifications), and configure notifications. You can completely disable them (my recommendation for most apps).
Even if you have notifications enabled for an app, you can customize the following settings:
- Notification delivery: immediate or scheduled summary.
- Alerts: lock screen, notification center and banners (with banner style). You can also disable sounds and badges.
- Lock screen appearance: previews and notification grouping.
My recommendation is to enable notifications only if it’s aligned with your priorities, and if enabled, configure the alert type, disabling sounds and badges if possible.
Other important configurations
Notifications are really important, but you can do more things to help you focus and get less distracted with your phone. Let me quickly go through them:
- Badges: disable them when possible. That number in the messaging app or social media is not helping you. You can have FOMO and be pushed to check the app only because a number behind a red circle tells you so.
- Silent mode: use it whenever you can. I don’t even know the sound of my phone. After taking it out of the box, I enabled silent mode and never changed it.
- Focus profiles: iPhone allows you to configure different profiles. I use customized versions of Work, Do Not Disturb and Sleep. Since I have little kids, I allow calls and messages from my wife if she needs me, and enable different apps based on the profile.
- Black and white screen: this might sound extreme, but if you want to be less distracted with your phone, you can configure the black and white screen with a shortcut (I have a triple-click of the side button). You can check out this article that explains why and how to do it.
Thanks for reading. Consider following me if you liked the content.
