“The bells, the bells they deafen me!” -Quasimodo.

Beep-beep, ring-ring, ping-ping. All day long it goes, and it’s never-ending. With messages popping up here and there, it seems that all this connectivity has made us increasingly ‘available’ to everyone but ourselves. Someone always wants to say “hi,” find out how you are doing, has an idea to share, or needs something.

But hang on a minute – I thought all these apps and tools were supposed to make me more connected and more productive?

While I love technology and everyone knows that I am a massive geek when it comes to apps and tools, nothing kills productivity quicker than being a slave to all these notifications.

A much better (and less stressful) way to manage your day is to have blocks of time set aside for attention on any given task.

Here are some of my tips for keeping those bells under control!

• First thing in the morning over a cup of coffee/tea/water/juice, check your calendar, review your day and adjust as necessary. Make sure your calendar is in the cloud and syncs perfectly across devices so you can easily make and change appointments on the go.

• Next, look at your task list or project plan. Brainstorm your priorities to create visual notes or write out your to-do lists. Never skip this part of the process! Reviewing what is on your plate and re-prioritising daily is essential.

• Then, check emails. If you can reply to an email in 2 minutes, do it right now. If you can delegate it, do it right now. If it needs more time and attention, put it in a folder with emails that need a reply, either today, this week, or another time.

• Add all actions for completion to your list and schedule them in with other clusters of similar tasks. Make sure you allocate some time to deal with these deferred tasks on a daily basis, or they will be forgotten. Scheduling tasks is not an opportunity to procrastinate! Tasks should be allocated in order of importance, not preference.

• Now, take the most important task on your list and set yourself some time to get it done, or some of it done. An hour is a good block of time, and you can earmark a coffee/notification/stretch break straight after so you can focus on the priority at hand, knowing that you can deal with anything inbound soon.

• Make sure that everything is switched off for now– especially pings, beeps and rings and anything that pops up. If you are blocking off several hours, you may want to let people know you aren’t available by setting a do not disturb status, voicemail or even an auto responder with details of where they can find information they need in the meantime.

• Take a notification break. Glance through the various notifications, and prioritise what needs to be dealt with now. Do you need to comment on Facebook posts now, or should you do those when you kick off your shoes and grab a glass of wine at the end of day? WhatsApp (or Viber & Messenger) messages can be replied to and the discussions deferred and scheduled a specific time later.

• The same rule applies: manage incoming messages according to your priorities. If anything can be done in less than 2 minutes, do it now. If it can be delegated in the same amount of time, do it now. Otherwise – schedule it.

AND breathe…

It takes a little practice, but once you get into the great habit of managing notifications well, you will have much more control of your life and feel less frazzled by the demands of all the electronic noise!

If you found the tips helpful, please share! Or comment below if you have anything to add.