💾 Archived View for hyperborea.org › tech-tips › notification-overload.gmi captured on 2022-06-11 at 20:59:23. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

📳 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?

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

Web Edition

More Tips

Fediverse: KelsonV@Wandering.shop