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> is the bar now basically “silent by default, prove value first?” Nowadays, yes — with a couple notable exceptions, discussed below. In the past, I immediately accepted / allowed notifications for apps like task managers and calendar — because I figured I needed alerts about important deadlines and appointments so I wouldn't miss them! But now even on those I allow badges but not notifications, because I realized that needing them meant I wasn't doing what I needed to do: work in such a way that I know the deadlines by heart and I fulfill them early, and work from my calendar (also knowing it more or less by heart, having a good sense of time, and disciplining myself to stay on track / on schedule and to respect time agreements I made with others and/or myself). Practicing and developing the discipline was what I needed, and the notifications were a crutch and further atrophied my self-management and executive function. (And too many notifications kept me in a tizzy and interfered with my work anyway — a vicious cycle!) Now the exceptions I mentioned. In my first response I said that I only want to get notifications from Messages. That wasn't entirely accurate. If I set a timer (say, for a work period) or a fleeting reminder (say, to remind me that my laundry needs to be switched to the dryer in an hour) then I want to hear a notification. That also goes for the one third-party app I downloaded, kept, and use with "notifications": a wake-up alarm that uses haptics only, vibrating to wake me up without disturbing my significant other. The unifying threads of these examples are that they are time-based; notifications are essential to the apps' functionality (e.g., you can't have an alarm without some kind of alert or notification); and I'm still specifically directing the apps to notify me about one-off items. None of these notify me without my say-so, and I never get an unexpected notification from them. > Have you ever kept an app around without notifications because the pull was strong enough on its own? Well, if I understand the question correctly, since I default to no notifications, every app still on my phone got kept because it proved its value and non-annoyance / user respect over time. If instead you're asking whether I immediately decided to keep an app always and forever because it was so valuable, no: apps can and do change, and my needs change, so apps are always on the chopping block and must perpetually provide value. And I regularly review all my apps for that value and delete ruthlessly. |
I love how you’ve shifted from needing constant reminders to building your own system to stay on top of things. I think that's something a lot of people can relate to. The idea of relying less on reminders and more on our own discipline.
It also reminds me of some of the newer trends I’ve seen in app development, like smarter notifications that are way more thoughtful about when to get your attention. I wrote a blog on how AI is helping mobile apps do just that, making notifications more useful without being a nuisance. If you’re curious, I shared a bit about it here: [AI Features in Mobile Apps for 2026 - https://www.budventure.technology/blog/ai-features-mobile-ap...]