Notification Zero

For a couple years, I’ve been actively reducing noise pollution (beeps, alarms, and sound notifications), light pollution, vibration pollution, and notification pollution.

Everything that has to be checked out and cleared away takes a decision. Notifications interrupt you and take you away from what you are doing (similar to advertisements), whether it’s merely mental cost of switching between thoughts, or whether it’s the click and the action afterward.

Obviously real-time notifications can have an enormous value, but next time an app asks if you want to accept push notifications, ask: why will getting this notification in real-time make my life better?