Don't let your phone control you
Notifications can be toxic as they let others control your time. I disabled notification on WhatsApp and other apps and the outcome was amazing. I have more control of my time and accomplish more.
“You turned off your notifications? Are you crazy!”
I get asked that quite a lot. About 2 years ago I realized that my phone was taking up a lot of my time and that I was allowing it to control me. It would impact my presence in the room and be attentive.
Whenever my phone vibrates or makes an alert noise, it is very difficult to hold back and NOT look at it. I wanted to know who sent me what, is it urgent?
A person I knew posted on Facebook that he disabled his notifications for WhatsApp. I said to myself he is nuts, how will he know if anything is wrong and he is needed urgently. Then I thought about it a bit more and thought, what did people do before we had cell phones in (almost) every pocket? They would find a way to reach out if it was urgent. They would call for example. Then I thought, how many times is there something SO urgent I am needed RIGHT NOW? Rarely.
I decided I’m going to do it. I knew I needed a hack for my wife to reach me if something was urgent. I decided I will disable my WhatsApp notifications (as well as the badges with the number of messages I have unread) but I’ll keep my ‘normal’ SMS as I almost never get contacted through there (so it's not much of a disturbance). If there was something urgent she could reach me through the SMS.
I discussed it with my wife and started my test. We agreed on 1 week, and see how it goes.
I LOVED IT!!!
Don’t get me wrong, I still checked my WhatsApp, but it was on MY terms. I controlled my time and could check it whenever it suited me.
I have now turned off the notifications for all such apps that used to control my time (yes, email and slack as well). For me it has made a huge improvement. When I’m in a meeting with people I choose if I check my phone or not (and I choose not to, so I can listen and respect them). When I’m with my kids I can be 100% with them. The magical thing is that nothing has broken or burned down so far since I disabled my notifications.
If you want to try turning off notifications on your phone, here are some steps you can follow:
Choose one app that you get a lot of notifications from and usually open immediately.
Talk to people who might need to reach you urgently and make sure there is a way for them to do so (e.g. phone call).
Test disabling the notifications and badges for a few days or a week if possible.
Be mindful of not checking the app too frequently, but feel free to check it on your own terms.
You will be surprised at how turning off notifications doesn't have as big of an impact as you might think.