For two weeks, our small team switched off every notification that was not a customer or a colleague asking for help. No badges, no pings, no little red numbers. We expected to feel cut off. Instead, we finished more work than in any fortnight this year — and went home less tired.

This is what we changed, what surprised us, and the few habits we kept once the experiment was over. None of it needs a new app. Most of it is simply choosing when to look.

Why we tried it

We counted, for one ordinary Tuesday, how often each of us was interrupted. The average was once every six minutes. Almost none of those interruptions were urgent; they were just loud. Deep work — the kind that makes a product better — needs longer stretches than that.

We were not short of time. We were short of time in one piece.

The rules for two weeks

• Email and chat checked at set times: 9:30, 1:00 and 4:30.
• Phones face down and silent during focus blocks.
• One shared “urgent” channel that could break through — used only four times.
• No meetings before noon, so every morning had a long focus block.

What surprised us

The first two days were uncomfortable. Several of us reached for our phones out of pure habit. By the end of the first week, the urge had mostly gone, and the batched check-ins felt calm rather than frantic — there was simply more to read at once, and it took less time in total.

Customers did not notice any slower replies. Colleagues noticed that replies were longer and more considered.

What we kept

1. Notification-free mornings, three days a week.
2. The single urgent channel, with a clear definition of “urgent”.
3. A short end-of-day note instead of a live status meeting.

If you try this with your own team, start small: one quiet morning a week is enough to feel the difference. This article is an example post for the UltraKit demo; the team and figures are illustrative.