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A single distraction can spiral into hours of procrastination. Fortunately, I’ve found the best do-not-disturb settings Windows offers, and they’re easy to set up.
Receive Important Notifications Only
Whileturning on Do Not Disturb modeis useful when you don’t want to see any notifications, it assumes that every app it mutes is a distraction. Some apps genuinely keep me informed, while others remind me of important tasks. So, I ensure the notifications of those apps still come through, even when I turn on Do Not Disturb.
After enabling Do Not Disturb mode, pressWin + Ito open the Settings app. Then, go toSystem > Notifications > Set priority notificationsand clickAdd apps.
Screenshot by Pankil Shah – No attribution required
In the pop-up, select the app whose notifications you want to prioritize. Once you do, it will appear in the list of priority apps. Do this for every app you don’t want to be muted.
Use of Focus Sessions
Focus sessions allow you touse the Pomodoro Techniquedirectly in Windows. This handy productivity technique has you concentrate on a single task for 25 minutes. Once the time is up, you then take a five-minute break before moving on to the next task.
By default, the timer in Windows is set to 20 minutes with five minutes of rest and then another five minutes of focus time. you may customize these intervals to fit you better, though, so don’t be afraid to play around.
To start a Focus Session, pressWin + Ito open the Settings app, head toSystem > Focus, and clickStart Focus Session. Alternatively, you may click the clock on the taskbar and then press the Focus button under the Calendar.
In addition to setting the timers, Focus Mode also enables Do Not Disturb, hides badges on Taskbar apps, and hides flashing Taskbar apps.
Hide the Taskbar
While I don’t want to remove the apps I have pinned to the Taskbar, I also don’t want temptations to open them when I don’t need to. The simplest solution here is to hide the Taskbar.
To do that, right-click the Taskbar and selectTaskbar settings. Expand theTaskbar behaviorssection and checkAutomatically hide the taskbar.
Windows will now hide the Taskbar when you’re not actively using it. you may make it reappear by pressing theWindows keyor moving the mouse pointer to the bottom of the screen.
Hide Desktop Icons
Just like icons in the Taskbar can be a distraction, the ones on the desktop can be, too. To fix this, I hide them to avoid opening apps like Netflix or Fallout Shelter during focus time. This can also reduce the visual clutter on the desktop, especially if your is messy like mine.
To hide these icons, right-click an empty part of the desktop and selectView > Show desktop icons.
Use PowerToy’s Awake Utility
Sometimes, I need to run a time-consuming task and would rather the computer not go to sleep and interrupt it. I usually don’t want tomess with the power settingstoo much, so I turn toone of the best Windows tool suites, PowerToys. One particular tool here, Awake, helps keep your system awake whenever you don’t want it to go to sleep.
To quickly enable it, launch PowerToys, selectAwakein the left-side menu, and toggleEnable Awake. Afterward, click theModedropdown and selectKeep Awake Indefinitely.
Spend Less Time on Distracting Websites
Even when I have a Focus Session going, I might want to catch up on social media updates during my break. However, it’s easy to ignore the timerif I start doomscrolling. I need something to snap me out of it, and that’s where theLeechBlock NGextension comes in.
The LeechBlock NG extension is available for Chromium-based browsers and Firefox, but this guide will talk specifically about using it in Chrome.
you may use this extension to block or unblock websites in various ways. I use it to unblock websites like Facebook or YouTube for five minutes every hour.
First, nstall LeechBlock NG from theChrome Web Store. Then, click the extension in the toolbar at the top and selectOptions.
In theBlock Set 1tab, enter the websites you want blocked in theEnter the domain names of the sites to blockbox underWhat to Block. Enter one website per line, and don’t include any URL prefixes likehttp://orfile://.
In theWhen to Blocksection, enter0900-1700in theEnter the time periods within which to block these sitestext box to block these websites between 9 AM and 5 PM. Then, underEnter a time limit after which to block these sites, enter5in the text box and selecthour (60 minutes)in the dropdown so that the sites are blocked for five minutes every hour.
In theHow to Blocksection, checkImmediately block pages on these sites once blocking conditions are met.
Scroll to the bottom and clickSave Options and Close.
The extension will now ensure that you spend less time on the sites you entered. It will also display a message to inform you when they will be unblocked.
You can configure this however you want, so don’t be afraid to experiment and find what works for you.
The final piece of the puzzle is your phone. ensure to enable and customize Do Not Disturb on your Android or iOS devices, too. The last thing you want is for your phone to be what ruins your Do Not Disturb setup on Windows.
