I’m not sure how long it’s been that I’ve followed this strategy, but I know I started doing it almost subconsciously and out of necessity.
Whenever I signup for something new I almost always look at the notifications and turn them off.
When I signup for a new app on my phone I always select to receive no notifications when it asks. I’m glad they ask because I would use fewer apps if they defaulted to sending push notifications.
When I signup for an online newsletter or service or something I’m also look at the notifications. Things like LinkedIn and Twitter are two examples. I don’t get any notifications from those services.
It’s a little different with email newsletters. I’ll signup for some and I have a few I really enjoy, but if I find myself not opening the newsletter for a few weeks in a row I unsubscribe and move on. I usually don’t miss the service and it saves space in my inbox.
Saving Time With Notifications
Think about the notifications you get on your phone and in your inbox. It takes time to receive those, but it really takes time to go through all of them.
What I find is that all I do anyway is delete those notifications when they’re in my inbox or on my phone. I would rather get them for only the very select few things that I care about to free up time and space. Then when I have time I can open the inbox or go to Twitter and look at things or go on LinkedIn and see what’s happened the past week.
And that leads to the biggest reason for not getting notifications.
Save Yourself The Interruption
That’s the big thing for me. I don’t like getting interrupted when I’m doing something. I want to focus on what I’m doing and do the best I can. I want to give it all my focus and kind of get in the zone.
I know it’s good to have some interruption during the day, but I don’t think regular notifications from things like social media, etc. are necessary.
If I’m getting buzzes on my phone all day it’s an interruption and it’s hard for me not to pay attention. The same is true if I have my email open and I’m getting email all the time from all kinds of crazy sources.
List Of Notifications To Remove
So here is a list of all the things I could think about to remove from your regular notifications:
- Social Media
- Email Newsletters
- Promotional Emails
- Retail Emails
- Phone Calls
- Texts
- Business Emails
I’m sure I’m missing more, but you get the point. The top ones are the biggies. Maybe you need to take phone calls for your business, but maybe you would turn on the Do Not Disturb when you really need to get something done. The chances of you missing out on something big if you have to call a person back in a couple hours are slim.
I would also schedule your time. Schedule time to do work. Schedule time for calls and for handling emails. I’ve been doing more of that and my productivity seems to be up. I get more done and usually in less time. There are fewer distractions and interruptions.
I think it’s a pretty solid Entrepreneur Hack.