Push notifications are one of the most useful developments of smartphone technology, but there comes a time when they become tedious and bothersome. Who wants to be woken up in the middle of the night by your friend's latest updates? How do you stop your phone from annoying everybody around you with its incessant rings? Here's how I learned to optimize the way I work with push notifications without losing any sleep.
Daytime
I've never kept my phone's ringer on — it's always on vibrate. Since my phone is always on me, it's pretty convenient to get an almost silent notification from it when it's in my pocket. For the past week, I've turned on LED Flash Alerts. This makes your phone emit a flash whenever you receive a notification. Go to Settings -> Accessibility and toggle on the switch for LED Flash for Alerts. You might have to fiddle with it for a bit, like I mentioned two weeks ago.
To make LED notifications work, you need a clear or transparent case. It's pointless to switch them on with an opaque case. There are a few different good clear cases on the market. I opted for a Power Support Air Jacket, which was readily available locally and made from medical grade silicone.
Depending on your surroundings, you might miss some notifications from time to time, even if your phone is right next to you. But it's almost impossible to miss LED flash notifications if the phone is within your field of vision.
Nighttime
I've trained myself to be quite sensitive to my phone's vibrations. It's something that everyone can try, but I can actually hear the vibration of my phone when I'm not in the same room. You can imagine how this plays out at night. The best way of muting all push notifications, without fiddling with my phone's settings too much, is to simply activate Airplane Mode. Go to Settings and toggle the switch. This deactivates all Wi-Fi, 3G, LTE features of your phone and will mute all notifications. It's a perfect way to silence your phone at night when you don't want to be bothered.
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I have push notifications turned completely off. I found them to be too intrusive and I really don't need to be notified of every FaceBook status update or anything like that. Now, the only alerts I have are from my Calendar and from my "ToDo" list.
iOS 6 introduces a new feature that will allow you to define a time when you don’t want notifications. You can whitelist certain people and also enable a feature that allows multiple calls from the same number within a few minutes to come through in case of emergency.
I also have all push notifications turned off. I just check facebook from time to time and can see updates that way. If I need an update that is important, then the person just calls me.
I just keep my phone on silent, no vibration, at all times. When I sleep I turn it over so I dont even see the blue glow from emails and notifications. The alarm still works in silent mode, so I'm all set.
My Blackberry has a profile called "calls only" that way if it's important enough for 2am I'll wake up, but all other notifications are silenced.
I turn my phone off at night.
I don't have a smartphone. Problem solved.
Hahaha I have a pre-paid Tracfone ... I spend about $25 every 2 - 3 months ... and most of the time it is turned off. Ahhhhhhh!
But what if someone is trying to reach you? A family emergency, for example? If your phone is on airplane mode, you dont' get any calls, either.
Ahh! this is one of the reasons I love my Blackberry. When I dont wanna be bothered, I put my phone on "Bedside Mode" and set it to Calls Only.
That way I still get all my notifications, except my phone wont make any noise or blink unless someone calls. I check everything in the morning when I wake up.
When my iPhone is plugged into my clock radio dock the only sounds it makes are phone calls.
Not sure if that applies to all iPhone docks but it's something to check out.
Turning on Push notifications will also eat up your battery more quickly. I often need my phone to survive all day with just one charge, so push is turned off and brightness is lowered. It's amazing how those two things make a HUGE difference for battery life (especially turning off push. I depend on my email for work, but honestly I check it ever fifteen to twenty minutes anyway. I didn't need to know the exact second an email came in.)