How to Tweak Do Not Disturb for Ultimate Productivity
Get a lot of notifications? Want to be able to go into focus mode? đ§ (or just take a nap đ´while still staying in the loop at work?) Well, Android has a lot of ways to customize Do Not Disturb (DND) just for that purpose!
Remote Worker Use Case
Take the use case of working remotely. You want to go on a run and the only notification that you want to know about is if itâs an urgent work matter that came up through a Slack message or an email.
What if you wanted to take a nap? (or sleep in? đď¸), but donât want to get woken up to all of your notifications? You would want t ochoose to only hear a sound for important, work-related, notifications. For this, you would want to utilize what I am going to call âDo Not Disturb Passthrough,â or âDND Passthroughâ for short.
Explaining DND Passthrough
In Android, there is actually a setting that allows you to choose exactly what notifications âpass throughâ Do Not Disturb! I will be using a Google Pixel running on Android 13 for this example, and it is referred to as âOverride Do Not Disturbâ in the Settings.
Setting Up a Work Gmail to Override DND
- Navigate to the home page of Settings and tap on âApps.â
You would think to start, in âNotificationsâ but no-no! đ
2. Find the Gmail app.
3. Tap âNotifications.â
4. Tap âMailâ under your work email.
Be careful not to turn off the toggle to the right.
5. Scroll down to âOverride Do Not Disturbâ and toggle it on.
Thatâs it, now you will hear a sound if a work email comes in. Now, go take that nap!
More Use CasesâŚ
Slack work chats:
Ever used Slack for work chats? If so, you may be familiar with how to schedule and prioritize notifications in the Slack system itself.
So, for example, if you set Slack to only send you notifications during work hours, say 9â5, but you plan on sleeping in past 9 one morning, or take a nap in the middle of the day, wouldnât you want an urgent Slack direct message, mention, etc. to wake you up to get back to work?
- Tap into âMessages and mentions.â
2. Scroll down and toggle âOverride Do Not Disturb.â
Thatâs it! Now, go ahead and sleep in.
Wear OS Smartwatches Too!
If youâre familiar with how you can turn on and off specific apps in the Wear OS app, youâll love that using âOverride Do Not Disturbâ wonât affect what you have all set up there and will still buzz your wearable too!