Digital Minimalism for Engineers: Cutting Notifications Without Missing What Matters

Open your laptop.

47 browser tabs. 13 Slack channels with unread messages. 3 email inboxes. GitHub notifications (28). JIRA pings. CI/CD alerts. Phone buzzing. Watch tapping your wrist.

You sit down to think.

Ping. Ping. Ping.

30 minutes later: you've responded to 12 things. You've made zero progress on the problem you sat down to solve.

Sound familiar?

Welcome to the modern engineering workflow: infinite interrupt-driven development.

Here's the claim: Your attention is your most valuable resource.

More valuable than your time. More valuable than your skills.

Because without attention, your time and skills produce nothing.

And right now, your attention is under constant siege.

Let's fix that.

The State of Digital Chaos

Let's take inventory.

Exercise: List Your Attack Surface

How many things can ping you right now?

Messaging:

• Slack
• Email (work)
• Email (personal)
• Teams
• WhatsApp
• Text messages

Development tools:

• GitHub (PRs, issues, mentions)
• JIRA (ticket updates, mentions)
• CI/CD (build failures, deploy notifications)
• Monitoring (alerts, dashboards)

Devices:

• Laptop
• Phone
• Watch

For most engineers, the count is 10-15 interrupt sources.

Each one competing for your attention.

Each one saying "Look at me. Now."

No wonder you can't think.

The Cost of Constant Interruption

"But I need to be responsive!"

True. But there's a difference between:

• Responsive (checking messages a few times a day, replying to important things)
• Always-on (interrupted every 8 minutes, never in deep focus)

The Cost to Deep Work

Research (and experience) shows:

After an interruption, it takes 15-25 minutes to fully regain deep focus.

If you're interrupted every 8 minutes, you never reach deep focus.

Result:

• Surface-level work only
• No complex problem-solving
• No creative breakthroughs
• Exhaustion from constant context-switching

The Cost to Decision Quality

When you're constantly interrupted:

• You make hasty decisions (to clear the notification)
• You miss nuance
• You respond emotionally, not thoughtfully

Example:

Tense PR comment. Ping. You read it. You're annoyed. You reply immediately.

Result: Defensive comment. Relationship damage.

Better:

Tense PR comment. You see it during your 2 PM Slack check. You think. You respond thoughtfully.

Result: Constructive reply. Relationship preserved.**

The Cost to Mental Health

Constant pings create:

• Low-grade anxiety (always waiting for the next one)
• FOMO (missing something important)
• Inability to rest (even off-hours, you're mentally on)

This isn't sustainable.

Classify Your Signals: P0, P1, P2

Not all notifications are equal.

Borrow from incident management:

P0: Must-See-Now (True Emergencies)

Examples:

• Production down
• Security breach
• Customer-impacting bug

How many per week? If you're honest: 0-2.

How they should reach you:

• Phone call
• PagerDuty
• Dedicated emergency channel

P1: Important Same-Day (Not Emergencies)

Examples:

• Manager needs input on a decision
• Teammate blocked on your code review
• PR ready for final approval

How many per day? 3-10.

How they should reach you:

• Direct message (you'll see it when you check Slack)
• Email (you'll see it when you check inbox)

P2: Batched / Can Wait (Everything Else)

Examples:

• FYI messages
• Newsletter updates
• Non-critical GitHub notifications
• JIRA ticket updates

How many per day? 50-200.

How they should reach you:

• Email digest
• Scheduled check times
• Or not at all

The Exercise

Go through your notifications.

For each source, ask:

• Is this ever P0? (if yes, keep push notifications)
• Is this sometimes P1? (if yes, check at scheduled times)
• Is this always P2? (if yes, batch or turn off)

Redesign Your Notification Settings

Now let's get tactical.

Phone: Turn Off Almost Everything

Default to: notifications off.

Enable push notifications ONLY for:

• Phone calls
• Text messages (maybe)
• PagerDuty / on-call emergencies

Everything else:

• Slack: off
• Email: off
• GitHub: off
• JIRA: off
• Social media: off (obviously)

Why?

• Your phone should not interrupt you for work
• You need protected deep work blocks
• Check these apps when YOU decide, not when they ping you

Slack/Teams: Channel-Specific Settings

Instead of:

• All Slack messages ping you

Do:

• Direct messages: notify
• @mentions: notify
• #emergencies channel: notify
• Everything else: no notification

How (Slack):

• Settings → Notifications → Customize per channel
• Mute channels that aren't urgent
• Use priority channels sparingly

Email: Scheduled Checks, Not Always-Open Inbox

Instead of:

• Inbox open all day
• Check every 5 minutes

Do:

• Close inbox
• Check email 2-3 times/day at specific times
  • 10 AM: morning check
  • 2 PM: afternoon check
  • 5 PM: end-of-day check

Use filters:

• VIP senders (manager, key teammates) → priority inbox
• Newsletters, automated messages → auto-archive or separate folder

GitHub / CI: Alerts for Your Repos/Teams Only

Instead of:

• Watching every repo
• Every PR, issue, comment notifies you

Do:

• Watch only repos you're actively working on
• Use "Participating and @mentions" notification setting
• Unsubscribe from threads you don't need to follow

Batch GitHub notifications:

• Check GitHub notifications once a day (like email)
• Or use a digest tool

Monitoring / CI: P0 Only

Instead of:

• Every build failure pings you
• Every low-priority alert interrupts

Do:

• P0 alerts only (system down, customer impact)
• P1 alerts go to a channel you check periodically
• P2 alerts go to a dashboard (no pings)

Create Clear 'Check Windows'

Once you've turned off notifications, you need a system for checking.

Otherwise, you'll just check constantly out of anxiety.

Understanding the hidden cost of context switching will help you appreciate why batched communication matters.

Example Check Schedule

9:00 AM: Morning Check (15 min)

• Slack: skim channels, respond to directs
• Email: inbox zero or triage
• GitHub: PRs needing review

12:00 PM: Mid-Day Check (10 min)

• Slack: catch up
• Email: quick scan

3:00 PM: Afternoon Check (15 min)

• Slack: respond to anything urgent
• Email: inbox zero
• JIRA: check assigned tickets

5:30 PM: End-of-Day Check (10 min)

• Slack: final scan, set status to away
• Email: anything urgent for tomorrow

9:00 PM: Optional Emergency Check (5 min)

• Only if on-call or expecting urgent issue
• Otherwise, skip

Between these windows:

• No Slack
• No email
• No notifications
• Deep work, meetings, focus

Communicate Your Check Schedule

Tell your team:

"I'm batching Slack checks at 9 AM, 12 PM, 3 PM, 5:30 PM. If something is truly urgent (P0), call me. Otherwise, I'll respond within a few hours."

Most people will respect this. And you'll be more responsive (because you're actually focused when you respond).

Social Contracts with Your Team

Digital minimalism isn't about disappearing.

It's about being thoughtfully available.

Set Expectations Clearly

With your manager:

"I'm optimizing for deep work. I'll check messages 3-4x/day and respond within a few hours. If there's a true emergency, call me. Does that work?"

With your team:

"I'm turning off Slack notifications so I can focus during the day. I'll check regularly and respond quickly to anything urgent. If I'm blocking you, ping me directly."

Create a Shared Emergency Channel

Instead of:

• Everything is "urgent"
• No clear signal for real emergencies

Do:

• Create #emergency or #incidents channel
• Reserve for P0 only
• Everyone watches this channel

Rule:

• If you post here, it better be a real emergency
• If it's not, we'll talk about calibration

Result:

• Clear signal for P0
• Everything else can wait

Closing: Less Noise, More Signal, Same Responsiveness

The fear:

• "If I turn off notifications, I'll miss something important."

The reality:

• You'll respond to important things faster (because you're focused when you check)
• You'll miss the noise (which was distracting you from real work)
• You'll be more present (at work and at home)

Digital minimalism isn't about ignoring people.

It's about protecting your ability to do deep work and respond thoughtfully.

Less noise. More signal. Better work.

One-Day Experiment: Turn Off One Class of Notifications

Tomorrow:

Pick one category of notifications to turn off:

• Slack (except directs and @mentions)
• Email push notifications (check on schedule instead)
• GitHub (batch check once a day)
• Non-emergency alerts

Replace with:

• Scheduled check (2-3 times during the day)

Observe:

• Did anything actually break?
• How did it feel to have uninterrupted blocks?
• Were you more or less responsive?

Most likely outcome:

• Nothing broke
• You got more done
• People didn't even notice (because you still responded same-day)

If it works, expand to other categories.

Your attention is a production dependency.

Treat it like one.

Protect it. Schedule it. Design your digital environment for focus, not distraction.

That's how you do great work in a world of infinite interruptions.