Notifications arrive throughout the day from many different directions, and each one, however small, pulls attention away from whatever is currently being worked on. Over the course of a day, these small interruptions add up to far more lost time than any single alert would suggest on its own.
Choose one fixed stretch of the day, ideally when demanding work usually happens, and switch off every notification during that time. This doesn't need to cover the whole day, just enough of it to allow real, uninterrupted concentration on something that matters.
Let the quiet period become a habit
Pick roughly the same time each day for this quiet stretch, so it becomes a predictable part of the daily rhythm rather than something that needs deciding fresh every morning. Consistency makes the habit far easier to keep.
Most notifications can comfortably wait until the quiet period ends, even if they seem urgent in the moment. Very few things genuinely require an immediate response, and the ones that do rarely arrive as a routine notification in the first place.
Once the fixed period is over, notifications can be checked all at once rather than trickling in throughout the day. Dealing with them in a single batch is usually quicker than responding to each one as it appears.
It can also help to let colleagues or family know roughly when this quiet stretch happens, so they aren't left wondering why a message went unanswered for a while. A short, one-off explanation is usually enough, and most people are perfectly happy to wait once they understand the reason behind it. Once this becomes a familiar part of the day for everyone involved, the quiet period tends to be respected without any further reminders.
