📳 Preventing Notification Overload

To keep myself from getting distracted by too many notifications on my phone, I ask myself the following questions whenever a new category pops up:

Will I need to act on it? (Likes/favorites are nice, but I don’t need to respond.)

How time-sensitive is it? (“Your ride is here” is more time sensitive than planning a get together for next weekend.)

How important? (“Server down” is more important than a project update. A conversation is more important than a newsletter.)

Is it actually for me, or is it an ad for the app service?

Related: Who are phone notifications for?

Then I turn off what I don’t need, turn off sound on the less urgent ones, and customize sounds for the most important ones.

So I hear when a text or instant message comes in, but not email or social media. When I pick up my phone I see emails, mentions & replies, but not favorites or boosts, etc.

It helps me a lot with alert overload. YMMV.

—Kelson Vibber, 2019-06-10

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Fediverse: KelsonV@Wandering.shop