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If it's not my phone beeping, new slack notifications, it's outlook popping up with meeting reminders, it's the application focus being ripped away from me by something else, it's time to update some random software on my computer, phone is ringing, someone is at my desk, and LinkedIn letting me know someone I haven't talked to in 15 years got a new job. Also, email.

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That's why disable / delete / close all that crap. Notifications are the death of productivity, and life.

There are simple solutions for all of these things.

1) keep work email and personal email segregated by only using your work email for work related services. Also, don't prioritize personal email over doing actual work.

2) turn on do not disturb if you're heads down if you can't bring yourself to ignore notifications

3) let coworkers know when you're heads down so they don't call or stop by your desk so that they know why you aren't answering.

4) if possible, try to push back on meeting times that conflict with focus times

5) turn on automatic software updates or defer them

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