Turn Off Your Notifications

The Problem with Dogs

Henri van Assche, 1801

You know that feeling when you take your dog out but he doesn’t go pee or poo?

Are you fucking serious? “No treats for you.” Frustrated at this fuzzball for interrupting, you sit back down. But five minutes later, he rings the bell to go out again. Now you think, you better piss or shit. He does, so you give him a treat. You’re happy that he finally went, but you’re also getting on edge.

Then the second you get into a good workflow, he rings it again. You march over there to see what’s wrong. He’s barking at a butterfly. Wonderful buddy. SHUT UP. It feels important because he’s barking, but it’s just another interruption. Nothing’s wrong, so you throw your headphones on and get back to work.

But then once again…

These nonstop interruptions aren’t so fun. Maybe it’s a reasonable tax for owning such a cute thing. How could you be mad at him? But imagine this: what if you got false shit alarms every minute? 

For most of us, this is a reality with our phones. Swarms of trivial notifications buzzing, like the dog pawing the bell after he’s already been out.

Sure, phone calls and texts can be urgent. But when the dog rings the bell to go pee-pee, you can always tell him, “five more minutes.” Even though he has no clue what you’re saying.

So why do we treat our phones any different? Why do we feel like we have to respond to any notification the second we get it? 

Every ping in your pocket feels urgent because it vibrates your leg. It’s right there. Imagine if you tied the dog bell around your ankle. Like squeaky shoes, you couldn’t ignore it. In the same way, it’s hard to ignore notifications if they’re always on. And we feel like we’ll miss out if we don’t stay “in the loop.” 

But here’s the thing: most notifications aren’t 9-1-1 emergencies.

After you take the dog out and dump some food in his bowl, you’ve done your job. Before you leave him home alone, you fill his water bowl. You trust he’ll be a good boy. We need to do a similar thing with our phones: focus on the vital few notifications and leave the rest behind.

But since we blend texting and sending memes, we get confused. We forget what’s meaningful. [1] One time at the family dinner, a guy we’ll call Dan got a text from a landscaper. The two of them had a meeting the next day. When Dan picked up his phone, I asked him, “Is it urgent?” With eyes down, he answered me with a sarcastic “Yep.” Then I pushed him: “More important than us?” He got a little hot after I said that. 

This is absurd. 

We live in a world infused with interruption, poor with presence.

We deny people our full attention because of a quick text we could type out later. Notifications skew our importance detectors. Because of them, we don’t appreciate the simple sacred things, like the family dinner.

Understand: you don’t have to answer every text right now. Like the dog barking at a butterfly, it’s intriguing but irrelevant. It’s irritating over time.

So here’s my challenge for you: turn off your social media notifications. Disable anything that doesn’t directly impact your relationships or work. You probably only need phone calls and texts on. Maybe email. [2]

Think about it: having every notification turned on is like leaving the front door of your house wide open. You’re letting anyone intrude on your day whenever they want. Would you own a dog that yelped at you every single minute? 960 woofs per day? Hell no. You’d have to demand his last supper request. [3] 

We all need a break from the barks of our phones. 

Join the movement. Live without interruptions.

Notes

[1] How do we decide what matters? Phone calls from friends and family are usually important. But why should we spend equal attention on some random news story? It would be bizarre to tie a bell to your ankle. Dog owners don’t. So why don’t we untether ourselves from the default settings of our phones?

I like Cal Newport’s idea in Digital Minimalism: aim for “conversation-centric communication.” Turn off most of your notifications. Make Do Not Disturb a default. Steer your texts and emails to phone calls. Spend more time talking. It’s more efficient, more human, and less irritating. We can train our phones like a good dog, only barking if he actually has to take a dump.

[2] Just like our parents used to say, don’t bring your phone to the dinner table. As for the less urgent notifications you’ll miss, plan a time to check them. This works better. There’s a FOMO adjustment, but it’ll change your life. Sample it for a week. You might realize what I did: why was I letting such trivial bullshit interrupt my life?

[3] I paraphrased this idea from Chris Williamson on Ali Abdaal’s podcast:

“You're allowing the entire world, anybody on the planet to intrude on your day whenever they want.”

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Special Thanks to

Dylan Kurt

,

Ben Gordon Sniffen

,

Anthony D'Apolito III

,

CjWerner

,

Karena de Souza

, and Brenda Geary for reading drafts of this.