This is a great example of a situation where modifying your own behavior is a superior solution when compared to relying on a technical solution for the situation. Technology solutions can only get us so far. Relying on notifications puts you at the mercy of the platform. Training yourself to check your email every so often is much simpler, and requires no added complexity at all.
> Relying on notifications puts you at the mercy of the platform.
Is this really an issue? You're still relying on the platform to host and serve your actual emails. If you don't trust them to notify you properly, why would you trust them to hold your entire email history?
This also means you're going to have moments where you check your emails and it wqs wasted time because there are no new emails since last time you checked.
Agree, to have agency in the digital world requires us having control over our initiative. There's both behavioral and technical ways to do this today:
1. Look only at certain times each day (see habit chaining, e.g. 'look at email after I get lunch')
2. Set a focus mode that allows notifications from email at certain times
3. Allow email notifications only from specific high-importance contacts
4. Just set a timer, calendar event, or or recurring reminder
Sure, that’s great and all, but some people have disabilities like ADHD that does not always allow modification of behavior to fit a particular neurotypical pattern that easily, and technology is often enormously useful helping correct that.
Maybe set a once or twice daily alarm to check your email. As a person with ADHD, my life has improved a lot after I started using alarms and calendar events for everything. Much better than hoping future me will magically develop better memory skills.
Gmail isn’t social media. My doorbell gives me notifications. Facebook, X, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, etc are not allowed to give me notifications no matter how much they protest about it.
What I do is in Fastmail I have a rule that snoozes all messages to around the time I usually take lunch. If I'm expecting a transactional I will just go fish it up when I need it.
I also use an app called Buzzkill that temporarily mutes serial noisemakers and spams any text message that contains a politician's name.
Finally, I wear an analog watch so I do not check my phone for the time.
Pretty much the only live push notifications I get are from direct messages, chats I am @tagged in, and credit card transactions.
