[apothegm]

I disable all notifications except for:

* SMS (and WhatsApp) for direct communications (disabled for an hour or two when seeking flow).

* Phone calls from family and close friends (filter disabled for a few hours when expecting an important call from elsewhere)

* Mentions and DMs on Slack (work hours only)

* Calendar

* Occasional temporary exceptions (Airbnb and airline apps during travel and a few days before/after; Taskrabbit the day before and day of a task; food delivery when expecting one, etc.)

Everything else I try to be notified of through email, which is easier to manage on a pull rather than push basis. I DO NOT allow email notifications. That’s begging for a deluge.

The default when an app or site asks to send me push notifications is a hard NO.

This volume of notifications is very manageable.

[mrngm]

Agree. I'll catch up on group chats that do not require immediate attention when it suits me, not when the stream of messages happens to arrive.

As for OP: read up on alert fatigue; if a notification isn't directly actionable, you shouldn't even see it!

The pull model for information is more durable for humans than the push model. Try RSS for news/blogs, take some time (preferably offline) each week to prepare for the important events in the upcoming week(s), write them down on something you pass by every day (such as a whiteboard near your front door).