Default Notifications to Off
Turn off every notification so nobody else's agenda hijacks your focus.
- Difficulty
- Starter
- Time to result
- ~days to results
- Steps
- 3
- Confidence
- 85%
Default Notifications to Off is a blunt digital-hygiene rule: switch every notification on every device to off as the baseline state. Forleo frames notifications as other people's ideas, agendas, and emergencies interrupting your attention, and interruptions as the primary thing that crushes deep focus work. The silence feels uncomfortable at first — a worry that you're not important or reachable — but it lets you finish core work dramatically faster, leaving more bandwidth for play, real conversations, and not being toast by day's end. The key is making off the default rather than a mode you toggle.
Origin
This is one of the practical productivity tips Forleo teaches from her study of efficiency and her own recovery from burnout, packaged among the actionable tactics she shares alongside the Success Plan and her Time Genius course.
Core principles
- 01Interruptions and distractions are the single biggest killer of deep focus work.
- 02A notification is someone else's idea, agenda or emergency inserted into your attention.
- 03Off should be the default state, not a special 'focus mode' you occasionally enable.
- 04The discomfort of silence passes quickly and is repaid in speed and bandwidth.
How to run it
- 1
Kill notifications everywhere
Go through every electronic device and shift every notification to the off position as the default — text messages, Slack, email, and every social platform.
Pro tip Make off the default state rather than a temporary focus mode you have to remember to turn on.
- 2
Tolerate the initial discomfort
Expect to feel uneasy at first — a sense of 'am I not important, is it too quiet, is no one reaching out'. Let it pass without caving.
- 3
Bank the reclaimed focus
Use the uninterrupted state to get core work done fast, then spend the freed-up bandwidth on play, real interaction, and rest.
In the wild
Forleo advises defaulting every notification off across all devices — texts, Slack, email, social — refusing to let other people's agendas and alerts interrupt deep work, and pushing through the early discomfort of the quiet.
→ Core work gets done far faster, leaving more space and bandwidth to play, have real conversations, and avoid ending the day toast.
Common mistakes
Leaving notifications as an occasional toggle
If off is only a mode you sometimes enable, you default back to constant interruption. The whole point is making silence the baseline.
Is it for you?
Best for
Anyone whose most important work requires sustained concentration.
Not ideal for
On-call roles where real-time alerts are genuinely part of the job.
From the transcript
“Really shift every notification on every electrical device you have to the off position, default it to off.”
“One of the biggest things that crushes our ability to do deep focus work is interruptions and distractions.”
From the episode
Marie Forleo: Everything is Figureoutable, How to Trust Your Intuition and Build the Life of Your Dreams
Marie Forleo