This is part 2 of a 3 part series on digital hygiene. I suggest starting at part 1.

Over the past few years I've cultivated a decent relationship with my phone. Not a good one, mind you, but one I'm fairly comfortable with. There is a part of me that yearns for a return to simple, black-and-white phones, with Internet access limited to whichever room in the house had the phone line and computer. But there's no going back; and so I had to find a way to live with the Internet (and the hyper-connectivity it entails) in my pocket.

Developing a good relationship to your phone is an intentional process. It doesn't happen by accident. All apps and media, by design, are fighting for your attention. I've heard the term "attention economy" thrown around, and I feel like it's an apt description of the battle for our increasingly fractured attentions.

And the easiest way to grab your attention is via notifications.

Sometimes I see a person's phone covered in notifications and I get anxiety-by-proxy. Red toasts in the triple-digits; the notification bar an endless list of banners, messages, friend requests, and marketing content. I can't imagine this is a pleasant experience, but it seems to be the norm.

In my opinion, notifications need to be reeled in as a priority. At the end of the day my phone is a tool. I want to choose how to use it. I don't want it to "keep me engaged" or sell me things. I want to own my own time, and have full control of my attention.

A more utilitarian reason to get notifications under control is that when all notifications are active, none of them are. When I use the Reminders app on my iPhone I actually want to be reminded of something, instead of that notification being buried beneath unimportant stuff.

Here's the method I used for breaking free of notification hell (you'll notice a lot of overlap with my previous post on emails):

1. Remove social media apps (or completely mute them at the very least)

I don't have traditional social media (think Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn). I've written about it before. But in a nutshell, these apps consume my time and energy without giving me much value in return. Instead I try to nurture in-person relationships, or use longer-form digital communication, like calls or email.

Regardless of my personal preferences around having social media, it goes without saying that those apps should, at the very least, be muted. No banners, no toasts, no sounds. It should be up to you when to engage with these platforms; because if left up to them you would never log off. Another way to manage this is to put social media apps on a separate device, like an iPad left at home, which takes this pernicious time-suck out of your pocket.

If you're trying to smoke less, don't carry a box of cigarettes around with you.

2. Opt-in instead of opt-out notifications

A simple but effective way of cleaning up phone notifications is to go and turn them all off, then selectively turn on the ones you actually need. The idea is that all notifications should be opt-in, instead of opt-out. Notifications should also be set to the least-intrusive method, depending on the application. For example, here are my only notifications on my phone:

• Messaging apps (Telegram, WhatsApp, Messages)
  • ✅ Toasts
  • ❌ Banners
  • ❌ Sounds
• Phone calls
  • ❌ Toasts
  • ✅ Banners
  • ✅ Sounds
• Calendar and reminders
  • ✅ Toasts
  • ✅ Banners
  • ✅ Sounds
• Uptime monitor
  • ❌ Toasts
  • ✅ Banners
  • ✅ Sounds
• RSS reader
  • ✅ Toasts
  • ❌ Banners
  • ❌ Sounds

Everything else is left turned off, since most things aren't time sensitive. I used to have Uber's notifications turned on, since I didn't want to miss my ride, but found that Uber doesn't respect marketing opt-out and would send me "special offers" that were impossible to turn off. Now I just make sure I don't forget that I've ordered an Uber.

With group-chats on messaging apps (which can become overwhelming), I mute all of the ones that have a lot of noise and archive them; checking them every now and then.

3. Managing sounds

Sounds and vibrations are the worst kinds of notifications since they grab your attention even when not using your device. Because of this you'll notice that only calls, calendar and reminders, and uptime monitors have sounds enabled, since these are the time sensitive ones. But even then I still have sleep mode active after 7pm, so only my uptime monitor and repeat phone calls get through.

4. Report telemarketers and robo-calls

In South Africa we have a public National Opt-Out Register (you may have something like this in your jurisdiction). This can be used by companies to determine if you're open to direct marketing communications. When I receive a marketing call from a company, if it's a human I politely ask them to remove my number from their marketing list. If I receive another call from that company (or any robo-call) I report them to the Information Regulator of South Africa for processing my personal importation without my consent, as well as not respecting the National Opt-Out Register. I then leave a public review for that company stating that they've broken the law by contacting me.

I'm very careful to never opt-in to any marketing communications, so I can say with certainty that any direct marketing I receive is definitively against privacy legislation where I live.

This has proven to be very effective. I have not received a single robo-call or direct marketing call in the past few months. It may seem like a lot of work up front, but it pays dividends since I never get pulled out of whatever I'm doing just to answer a call from a company I don't care about. It's also punishment for them trying to advertise to me in the privacy of my own home. That feels like crossing a boundary.

All of this applies to the computer as well. I don't allow any banners to pop-up on my computer, which easily pull me out of work. Slack only shows a red small toast (sans the number) to let me know there's an unread mesage, and even then the sidebar on my Mac is hidden by default. Your mileage may vary, depending on the work you do, but protecting deep work is important. At least to me.

So why all of this effort? I try to live an intentional and present life. I want to be here right now. Technology isn't going to regress back to the 90s and so we need to cultivate good relationships with our devices, so we can cultivate a good relationship with ourselves and the people around us.

Take back your attention.