Notification Windows

I just thought of this and suddenly it feels like a must have feature for me.

Nowadays I have notifications activated on my iPhone for only two apps; iMessage and the phone. 97% of the use for those two apps is family updates and ‘logistics’ during the day. Everything else is deactivated, which is working great.

I realized earlier today that for some occasions, I’d like some apps to have a short time window within which they can notify me. When I post something on Slack for example or after replying to someone on Twitter. What I’d like to be able to do is identify some apps where for X minutes (probably 15-20) after using them, notifications get through. That way, if someone takes the time to answer right away, I know and can answer back. Otherwise the apps are silenced again after the 15 minutes.

All notifications are off so I control my attention. In this case, I’ve already stopped to use the app so I’m assuming I’m between tasks and the notification window then makes sense. Another option would be to use the do not disturb mode more liberally, turning it on and off during time blocks of focus, and then white list some people to let them disturb me anyway.

Time Delay

On the flip side, I almost posted the above idea on Twitter as I thought of it but I was standing in the cafe, ready to leave so I just decided I’d type it from the laptop when I sat back down at home. On the walk here I had just enough time to think it through a bit more and decided to make it a quick blog post instead.

Maybe I also need to have a timed outbox for tweets, with the option to turn them into something else (or delete) before they actually get sent to Twitter…