Last night my wife’s phone started dinging like crazy. A massive text conversation had broken out around 10p as she was trying to unwind and relax. She immediately jumped toward her phone because regardless of the topic she was going to be disturbed by the noise.
I was on that same text chain but avoided all of the jumping. I learned a few years back that other than for a small handful of things, it’s best to not let your phone train you to jump. My phone only makes noises for calendar reminders, phone calls, and alarms.
I used to have the classic bing for emails and texts. I discovered the stress that comes with hearing bings all over though. Even if you don’t use the out-of-the-box sounds on your phone, you will still hear similar enough noises all around you all day. Being attached to reacting anytime something came in was making my quality of life go way down.
What I learned was that you don’t actually miss things when the notifications are turned off. Most of us look at our phones at least a few times an hour so nothing actually gets missed. What actually ends up happening is that you have more consistent trains of thought. You are able to productively continue a task without the constant glances and changing screens to see who needs you now.