People ask me all the time how I seem to get so much done.
Between leading multiple initiatives, managing projects, producing a podcast, completing my doctorate, earning my Project Management Professional (PMP) certification, and still finding time to think strategically about new ideas, they assume I have some secret productivity system.
They usually expect me to recommend a planner, an AI tool, or the latest app that’s going to organize their life.
My answer is always much simpler.
I tell them to turn off their notifications.
Almost every single one of them.
The first time I tell people that, they usually laugh.
Then they ask the question I know is coming.
“But what if you miss something important?”
The funny thing is, I don’t. Look, I’m not out here saving lives. I’m saving PDFs.
I don’t have Outlook notifications turned on. No sound, no banners, no red bubbles.
I don’t have Slack notifications turned on.
My computer doesn’t flash every time an email arrives, and my phone isn’t constantly buzzing because someone sent me a message.
That doesn’t mean I ignore my email. It doesn’t mean I don’t respond to people. It simply means that I check Outlook and Slack when I have the time, not when my devices decide I should.
That one decision has probably had a bigger impact on my productivity, my career, and honestly my mental health than almost anything else I’ve ever done.
It wasn’t always this way.
Like most people, I used to react to everything. Every notification felt important. Every email felt urgent. Every Slack message seemed to deserve an immediate response.
Without realizing it, my entire day became one long series of interruptions.
I’d sit down to write something important, only to stop because an email came in.
While answering that email, another message would pop up.
Then someone would send me a message on Slack.
By the time I looked back at the document I was working on, I’d completely lost my train of thought.
At the end of the day, I always felt busy.
But I rarely felt like I had actually accomplished the things that mattered most.
Eventually, I realized something.
The problem wasn’t that I had too much work.
The problem was that I was allowing everyone else’s priorities to become my priorities.
Every notification was someone or something asking for my attention.
And I kept saying yes.
So I decided to try something different.
I turned them off.
Not forever. Just as an experiment.
I still checked my email.
I still answered messages.
I still got back to people.
The only difference was that I did it on my schedule instead of theirs.
What surprised me wasn’t that I became more productive.
It was how much calmer I felt.
I could finally spend an hour writing without being interrupted.
I could think through a complicated problem without my brain constantly switching gears.
I could finish one thing before starting another.
That mental space was something I hadn’t realized I’d been missing.
Today, I also use the Focus features on my phone. My personal favorite is the hour or so I give myself a day to work out, and in that time, NO ONE gets through. It annoys my sister to no end. It’s my time to focus on filling my cup.
Only a handful of people can reach me immediately during the workday. Family members and a few important contacts are allowed through because if something is truly urgent, I want to know.
Everything else waits.
Knowing that real emergencies can still get through actually makes it easier to ignore everything else. But also, define what a real emergency is.
I don’t feel the need to check my inbox every few minutes “just in case.”
If it’s truly important, I’ll know.
Otherwise, it’ll still be there when I finish what I’m doing.
Looking back, I honestly believe this one habit helped me accomplish some of the biggest goals of my career.
Over the past several years, I completed my doctoral dissertation.
I earned my PMP certification.
I launched and produced a podcast that created 250 individual episodes in one year.
I’ve led major initiatives and managed complex projects.
Those accomplishments didn’t happen because I somehow found more hours in the day.
They happened because I protected the hours I already had.
Long stretches of uninterrupted thinking became the norm rather than the exception.
There’s another benefit I didn’t expect.
Turning off notifications didn’t just change my habits.
It changed other people’s expectations.
When you respond to every email within five minutes, people begin to expect that you’ll always operate that way.
Without realizing it, you’ve trained everyone around you to expect you to be always available.
I decided I didn’t want that to be true. Today, the people I work with know that I’ll respond.
They also know it may not happen immediately because I’m probably focused on something important. Ironically, I think my responses are better now.
Instead of sending quick replies while I’m distracted or bouncing between meetings, I can actually think before I respond.
We’ve somehow convinced ourselves that being immediately available is the same thing as being productive. I don’t think that’s true anymore. I think being constantly available often means you’re constantly interrupted. And constant interruption makes deep work almost impossible.
Productivity isn’t about checking more boxes. It isn’t about answering email faster. It isn’t about having the cleanest inbox (which baby, mine is at inbox zero daily… everything has a place)
Real productivity is making meaningful progress on the work that matters while still having enough mental energy left at the end of the day for your family, your hobbies, and yourself.
For me, protecting my attention has been the key to it all.
If the idea of turning off your notifications makes you nervous, I understand. It made me nervous too. So don’t commit to doing it forever. Just try it for three days. Turn off Outlook notifications. Turn off Slack notifications. And I’m talking about both the sounds and the red bubbles.
Use the Focus tools on your phone so the people who truly need you can still reach you.
Then check your messages when you decide it’s time instead of every time your phone or computer interrupts you.
Three days later, ask yourself a few questions.
- Did you really miss anything important?
- Did you get more meaningful work done?
- Did you feel less mentally exhausted?
- Did you have more room to think?
I have a feeling you’ll discover what I did.
Your inbox will still be there.
Your Slack messages will still be waiting.
But your attention, your creativity, and your peace of mind might finally have the space they’ve been missing.
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