Distraction disaster! Notifications are ruining our concentration ? here?s how to escape them

Joanie (not her real name), a clinical psychologist who lives in London, has three work laptops. This is not uncommon when you're spread across different NHS services. Sometimes, she feels like the 1980s synth supremo Paul Hardcastle, who used to dart between keyboards when performing on Top of the Pops. Except that he wasn't always rudely interrupted by random notifications. "When I log on to one laptop," she says, "this automatic thing comes on called Netpresenter player. It's a ticker tape, like one of those bus-stop ads that keeps moving."

She quits it, because she needs to concentrate on writing up notes before her next meeting. But it keeps coming back with annoying notifications. "I've been in the middle of a session and it's started playing music and a video - usually things like, 'Don't forget to wash your hands properly', or, 'Hey, we're all meeting for a webinar in half an hour about staff wellbeing.'" Joanie says her wellbeing would improve if it was easier to get her work done.

Scrolling down YouTube's endless list of video explainers for opting out of notifications provides a window into this distracting reality: "Turn off annoying Outlook alerts," "How to disable notifications in Google Chrome browser," "How to TURN OFF ALL notifications on ANY iPhone." PlayStation, Microsoft Teams, Facebook, Garmin smartwatch, the list goes on and on, because this is a constantly evolving situation and we can't keep up.

Joanie is a serial notifications disabler, but could do with watching the Teams and Outlook ones. The computer she uses most has recently started running Microsoft Teams to connect workers who either hotdesk or, since Covid, work from home. As she opens it, I hear a sophisticated chime that reminds me of airports, with their frequent announcements about gate closures for flights that aren't yours. She says that's the "activity" bell, heralding announcements that may or may not be relevant.

Then there's the general chat function, which notifies her about more meetings than anyone could possibly attend. "But even when I decline the invite, sometimes I still get all these pings of messages from the meeting saying: 'I can't see the slides.' So then you have to actively mute yourself each time." Email notifications needlessly pop up on Microsoft Outlook, and with young children, her personal phone is never far away, with its steady flow of reminders from school, and other pings and alerts she either needs or hasn't managed to eliminate.

On her third laptop, there's only a shared drive for files, and an email account. "I feel when I'm on that laptop, I can get my job done so much more easily, because you're choosing what you do."

Sophie Leroy, associate professor at University of Washington Bothell School of Business, is an expert in work interruptions, although many of her findings also apply to personal life. She puts notifications into two categories: "Notifications like work emails, where you are expected to provide an answer immediately, because of corporate norms, versus things that may not require a switch of your attention, like the Wall Street Journal, or your favourite store, and then you have to decide whether to switch or not." Both are challenging.