“Notifications are alarm clocks that someone else is setting for you.”

“Notifications are just alarm clocks that someone else is setting for you.”

— @Naval via @Visualizevalue

I haven’t had notifications on my phone in about 4 years now. It’s almost impossible for people to call me as I’ve activated “do not disturb” except if I’m waiting a call, except my little brother who can call me at any time.

I’ve been asked why I do all of this numerous times. It’s simply because whatever people are trying to reach me with probably isn’t that important. Not important enough to disturb me in the middle of whatever I’m doing at the moment.

“But someone might have fallen ill, or there might be an emergency.”

Yeah, and if it’s in my family, my little brother’ll call me. Or I’ll get back as soon as I can. But the probability of something being urgent or important enough to disturb me at any time is very very low. I value the time I spend on things, and I value the integrity of being able to do just that.

I had a friend who wrote a wonderful passage on this. He’d been offline for a month, doing a project in a remote area with no internet connection or cellular. There were no ways other than smoke signals to contact him. When he got back, he had some 800 e-mails in his inbox, many of which had the title URGENT or IMPORTANT. And he realised that almost none of them were urgent, and none of them were important enough to disturb him in the work he was doing.

With this, I want to encourage you to try turning notifications off. They’re reminders from other people, often dictating your usage of your time, and distracting you from what you’re doing. Try setting your phone aside for an hour and a half and see what type of focus you can acquire.