Eight notification types to shut off or silence for improved productivity.
Originally published on Medium.com

The ding of an incoming email used to give me a panic attack.
Who was it? What did they want? Did I need to drop everything and answer them? Of course, I did. They expected it. I was providing good customer service by dropping all my work, interrupting my flow and telling them the thing they wanted to know, which was a thing that if they’d only given me a fricking day and a half they could have learned at the same time as everyone else when I made the announcement but now that was going to be at least two days because I kept getting interrupted.
I’d reply.
Sit back down to my interrupted task and — ding! — they’d fired off a reply to my reply, starting the cycle all over again. And reaffirming that this was a process that must be done NOW.
But it wasn’t sustainable.
And my productivity suffered for it. . . .
Read my full article — and perhaps more significantly find the eight notification types to shut off or silence for improved productivity — at Medium.