PC World - USA (2020-05)

130 PCWorld MAY 2020

HERE’S HOW TUNE WINDOWS 10 FOR LASER-FOCUSED PRODUCTIVITY

GET RID OF INTERRUPTIONS

If you want to stay focused on a task,

reducing your interruptions is key. That can

be as simple as checking your email and

social media only at designated times, but

Windows 10 can still pop up notifications

that can kick you out of a

productive headspace, be

it from apps or the OS

itself. Let’s eradicate those

first.

Open the Start menu,

click the Settings cog icon,

and head to System >

Notifications & Actions.

You have a few different

options here. To nuke all

notifications from orbit,

eradicating them

completely, move the Get

Notifications From Apps And

Other Senders item to Off.

Boom.

For a more nuanced

approach, you can click the

tiny Focus Assist Settings link

underneath that option,

which allows you to set up

rules for when and how you’ll

receive OS notifications.

If you want to receive

some notifications—say, Mail

and Calendar events—but

not others, head back to the

main Notifications & Actions screen. At the

bottom, you’ll see a big list of all the apps

that can potentially send you notifications.

Slide the ones that aren’t critical to Off. I like

to disable the Razer Synapse and Discord

system notifications, for example, because

Windows 10’s notifications options.

Windows 10’s Focus Assist options.