It will be a little different than the usual blogs but bear with me, I want to share something I tried and I think can be useful for others as well.
We all are addicted to our phones, checking notifications, getting distracted, and end up replying to some of those notifications and the cycle repeats!
There is no denying that notifications are an integral part of our life and the apps we all have on our phone constantly bombards us with numerous notifications.
Definitely, they help us by keeping us informed and connected but at times, it can bring anxiety, stress, and feeling of being overwhelmed.
Through this blog, I hope to offer practical tips, tools, and resources to help you reduce the impact of notifications on your life, improve your productivity and focus, and achieve a better balance between your digital and offline worlds.
What is it?
Notification anxiety is a feeling of stress, worry, or pressure that arises from constantly checking and responding to notifications from electronic devices such as smartphones, laptops, or tablets.
The constant barrage of notifications can create a sense of urgency and a fear of missing out (FOMO), leading to a compulsive need to check and respond to notifications even if they are not critical or important.
This can result in a range of negative emotions such as anxiety, distraction, and decreased productivity. It can also lead to a lack of focus, poor sleep, and other negative impacts on mental health and well-being.
Solutions?
Differentiate Notifications with sounds
You can set different notification sounds for different purposes.
For Example - in WhatsApp, you can set custom notification tones for specific contacts. You can implement this to isolate notification sounds for your favorite people (parents, siblings, partner, etc.) - Sometimes we are excited about some people, and from the alert sound if we are able to figure out about the sender then I think it would keep you calmer.
Also, For different apps, set different notification tones, so for the frequently used apps, you'll have an instant idea when you receive a notification and hear the sound. That way you can decide quickly if you should check your phone or not.
Save notifications for later to reduce noise
I use an app on my Android called Notisave (Play Store link) - what it does is simple but super efficient for me.
So what we will be doing is transferring all our notifications from Notification Panel to this app so we can read them later.
It also saves notifications so we won't be missing anything + it supports the grouping of notifications on the basis of apps so we can make some groups for the office, social media, games, delivery apps, etc.
To get started, It's quite easy-peasy.
- First I need to select some apps for which I want to block the notifications.
- From now, every new notification for these blocked apps, won't bother you from the notification bar, instead, it will go to the Notisave for you to read it later.
So these are some of the ways I use to keep my mind calm and relaxed.
Within a short span of time, you will see how many notifications get bombarded to you so frequently but as we don't have any count or estimate of the number we ignore the impact of this on us.
For Example - You can see I got around 9.2k notifications which is the number of times my phone would have vibrated/alerted/distracted me.
In conclusion, while it's natural to feel anxious about notifications, it's important to remember that they don't define us. By setting boundaries and practicing mindfulness, we can learn to manage our notification anxiety and live more peaceful, present lives.
Hope this helps you. See you in the next one!
Thanks for reading 🌻