Check notifications only 3 times a day
People felt less distracted in a week with phone alerts silenced and the phone out of sight than in a week with alerts on.
You are halfway through a reply when the phone on your desk lights up with a delivery update. You glance at it, open it, and ten minutes later you are scrolling a group chat. Checking notifications at a few set times a day keeps that pull in one place, and setting it up takes about five minutes in your phone settings.
What it helps with
Phone distractions
People felt less distracted in a week with phone alerts silenced and the phone out of sight than in a week with alerts on.
Constant interruptions at work
Phone notifications are linked to more restlessness, which eased when alerts were off and phones out of reach.
Key facts
- 1In a study of 221 people, a week with phone alerts on was linked to more inattention than a week with alerts off.
- 2In a lab study, just receiving a phone notification, without answering it, disrupted performance on an attention task.
- 3In experiments, people whose phone was in another room scored higher on working memory tests than people with it on the desk.
- 4Adults who checked email three times a day for a week reported lower daily stress than when they checked as often as they liked.
Why each ping adds up
Each alert pulls your attention away from what you were doing, even when you only glance at it. Getting back into the task takes extra effort, and part of your mind often stays on the message. Across a day of dozens of alerts, those small breaks can leave you feeling scattered and behind. The cost is easy to miss because each single check feels so short. The idea behind this habit is simple: your phone waits for your check times.
How set check times help
Grouping a task into set windows is often called batching. When you check messages at planned times, you choose when to switch tasks, and the phone loses that job. Between windows, Do Not Disturb and a little distance remove the sound, the buzz and the sight of the screen. That distance matters because the phone itself can act as a reminder to check. In one set of experiments, even a phone lying face down on the desk was linked to lower scores on demanding mental tasks.
Three windows a day is the number tested in the email study below, which makes it a sensible default. Twice a day suits people who rarely get urgent messages. Five times is a fair start if you check constantly now. The right number is the one you can keep for weeks.
What the research found
In a 2016 study, 221 people spent one week with their phone alerts on and one week with them off. During the alerts-on week, they reported more inattention and hyperactivity, such as restlessness and trouble staying on task. A separate lab experiment found that simply receiving a notification, without answering it, disrupted performance on an attention task. Another set of studies found that people who left their phone in another room did better on working memory tests than people who kept it on the desk. Working memory is the mental space you use to hold and juggle information for a moment.
Checking email seems to follow a similar pattern. In a 2015 trial with 124 adults, people reported lower daily stress during a week of checking email three times a day than during a week of checking freely. These findings come with limits. Many participants were university students, the studies lasted days or weeks, and the effects were modest. Later attempts to repeat the phone-in-another-room result have been mixed, and no study yet shows how long the benefits last.
Making it stick
Pick check times that match natural breaks in your day. If your workday runs from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., your windows might be 10:30, 1:00 and 4:00, each about 15 minutes long. Put them in your calendar so you don't have to hold them in your head. If work or family needs to reach you, let favorite contacts or repeated calls break through Do Not Disturb. Outside your windows, keep the phone in a bag, a drawer or another room.
You will probably hear yourself say you are just checking the weather, so leave the weather for your next window too. On a busy or anxious day, use the easier version and allow a couple of extra checks. If you slip, close the app and carry on: your phone waits for your check times, and one stray check doesn't undo that. Over a few weeks, you become someone who checks messages on purpose. If you feel panicky when you can't check your phone, or cutting back feels impossible, talk to a doctor or therapist. Which natural breaks in tomorrow could become your check times?
Action steps
- 1Choose your check times. Decide when you will check notifications 3 times a day, spread across natural breaks, and give each window about 15 minutes for messages, apps and email.
- 2Silence non-essential alerts. Turn on Do Not Disturb outside your windows, and let only calls from key contacts come through.
- 3Keep your phone out of sight. During focused work, put your phone in a drawer, bag or another room, and take it out only at your check times.
Suggested routines
- Decision fatigue
Set 3 daily goals the night before
Resisting temptation may leave less willpower for hard tasks, though later studies found this effect is smaller than first thought.
- Trouble focusing at work
Keep a water bottle on your desk
Losing even 2% of your body's water is linked to weaker attention, slower reactions and more mistakes on routine tasks.
- Reaching your goals
Write down 3 daily achievements
Tracking your progress toward a goal makes you more likely to reach it, especially when you write it down or share it.
References
- Kushlev, K., et al. (2016). "Silence your phones": Smartphone notifications increase inattention and hyperactivity symptoms. Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1011–1020. doi.org/10.1145/2858036.2858359
- Kushlev, K., & Dunn, E. W. (2015). Checking email less frequently reduces stress. Computers in Human Behavior, 43, 220–228. doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2014.11.005
- Stothart, C., et al. (2015). The attentional cost of receiving a cell phone notification. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 41(4), 893–897. doi.org/10.1037/xhp0000100
- Ward, A. F., et al. (2017). Brain drain: The mere presence of one's own smartphone reduces available cognitive capacity. Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, 2(2), 140–154. doi.org/10.1086/691462