“Can I live without notifications?”

Reflections from 5 years of going down the Productivity rabbit hole - starting with eliminating "bad" screen time.

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: Rewinding the clock back to 2020, my mom clearly remembers telling me many times: “Why are you always on the phone?”

COVID (2020) and early 2021 was peak mobile phone addiction for me. I would wake up, go straight to check Twitter even before brushing my teeth… looking back, the phone & social media addiction probably took 2 months of progress away from my company because of how distracted I was.

Sometime in the middle of 2021, I read 3 books which changed my perspective.

The 3 perspective changing books:

Indistractable & Hooked by Nir Eyal; Essentialism by Greg McKeown

(1) Hooked by Nir Eyal

• The “Hooked” 4-step model helped me understand how exactly I was being “trapped” by “triggers” from social media

• You can find my notes from Hooked here

(2) Indistractable by Nir Eyal

• One memorable quote stood out: “You can’t be distracted by something unless you know what it’s distracting you from (i.e. your planned activities)”

• This book also has a bunch of useful techniques like time-boxing.

• You can find my notes from Indistractable here

(3) Essentialism by Greg McKeown Essentialism

• One memorable quote stood out: “Living by design versus living by default”

• You can find my notes from Essentialism here

The journey of living by design:

2022 → year of change: switched off ALL social media notifications

2023 → year of progress: switched off WhatsApp & SMS notifications

2024 → year of plateau; switched off e-mail notifications

2025 → year of Zen; brought down phone time to ≤ 1 hr (even sub 30 mins on workdays)

Sounds crazy? Yes, I know & I’ve been told so. Think I’m flying blind? No, I’m flying on manual (i.e. full control).

Let’s walk through what this means:

(1) The routine → Switch off WiFi before bed. Wake up → gym @ 6AM; back at 8AM. Ready for work at 8:30 AM → WiFi switches on & only then do I check notifs on my phone.

• I only message family in the morning (type it before WiFi comes on)

• On an avg office day, I’ll see my phone at 10AM

• Days when I am WFH or OOO, I won’t check the phone until 12 noon or later

(2) The result → In the morning, I have no idea WTF is going on unless I get a missed call or someone dials the office landline in my cabin.

(3) The risk → yes, I am are unreachable. In ~2.5 years, I have had just two instances where my mom was worried because I didn’t respond for ~16 hours (*)

• (*) Incident no. 1 was: I forgot to text before going to bed, I was unwell. I didn’t have a flat mate at the time who my mom could contact. Real edge case.

• Incident no. 2 was: I texted my mom but forgot to switch the WiFi on (LOL, yes real story)

But, this risk is a small price to pay for overall peace.

“If you don’t set boundaries you are subject to the limits that others set for you.” — Greg McKeown in Essentialism

Where can you start with this implementation?

(1) The simplest is to mute notifs from LinkedIn, Twitter, IG etc as a starting point. It will feel VERY strange at first, but become so routine in a few weeks

(2) Read up on the 3 books mentioned earlier: Hooked, Indistractable & Essentialism

(3) Try some small “life hacks”

• Don’t check phone until {X} time of day (for me, it is ~10AM)

• Write a prioritized To Do list (3–5 items) the night before & in the following morning: don’t check email / DMs until you get a few of those tasks out of the way

• Make your phone inaccessible e.g. different room at home / in your bag at office

Hopefully you’ll be like these two folks -> lost in conversation versus lost in content

The Caveat

Btw, not every day is smooth sailing - there are some days I’m like the two clueless ones below - other days where I’m glued to my phone (e.g. when I’m travelling, family occasion etc)

I have weeks where my screen time average is ≤ 45 mins, then a week where it is 2+ hours (which was the case when I travelled to Germany earlier this yr)

There is a concept of essential v/s non-essential screen time; exercise your judgement to decide which activity goes where.

The Crux

You have to get over FOMO → you WILL miss the hot debate of the day, you MIGHT be late to news or you may NOT get to participate in some action. But, that is fine and you’ll get used to do.

So, back to the original Q: “Can I live without notifications?” Answer: “Yes. But you’d need to get to this state incrementally.”

Remember: This is not supposed to be easy, Tech companies pay millions to people whose entire job is to make sure you see & click on notifications! Good luck

PS: I’ve been inactive on Substack for 2 months now; I’d like to apologize for the same - I was on vacation in June 2025 and since coming back, work has been quite hectic. I’ve been spending a LOT of time on the AI productivity rabbit hole - I hope to share something soon!