Use Do Not Disturb for Gmail as Part of Your Productivity System
The top productivity systems, like GTD or Inbox Zero, advocate both:
- Keeping your Inbox empty
- AND, only checking your Inbox a few discrete times per day.
An #inboxhero email master can keep their inbox empty. But that will not free up anytime in your day.
Only by staying OUT OF YOUR EMAIL inbox can you truly focus on the important tasks. It is not enough to just keep your inbox closed. Today, a new email appears on your computer, on your phone and maybe even your watch.
An email “do not disturb” app will keep your email silent and your Inbox empty so you can focus on your #deepwork, the important to do items that make meaningful change in your life.
You can reduce overall intrusiveness by turning off notifications in the desktop and mobile applications. On mobile, you can also turn off sync to prevent Gmail from automatically downloading your messages.
However, neither of these can be set on an automatic schedule. Also, both take multiple clicks to turn on or off and there is no easy way to get your email to download if you have turned off sync (without turning sync back on ).
Gmail does not have a built-in Do Not Disturb (DND) service. But, DNDEmail offers a specialized do not disturb solution for Gmail that includes:
- advanced custom schedules
- schedule email “fetch” times
- set different schedules for each day of the week
- whitelisting both special contacts and labels
- works on desktop and mobile
- a full featured free tier (plus a pay for advanced features set)
Setting Up Do Not Disturb for Gmail
- Sign in to the app at https://app.dndemail.com
- Set your custom settings
- Set up your whitelists — for any sender whose email you want to always arrive in real-time, add their email address to the email whitelist. This is good for your boss or spouse. You can also add an entire label to the whitelist — any emails that come to that label will not be held by the app. For example, you may have a “Family” label or an important client.
- Be sure to install the chrome extension to control the app from directly inside Gmail.
Next Steps
Do Not Disturb for Gmail allows you to easily setup and schedule DND times for your Gmail. The DND applies to both your desktop and mobile Gmail applications. It can be turned on or off on a schedule. You can have it deliver your email to your inbox on a set schedule.
DNDEMail is free and works on both desktop and mobile. You can set up specific schedules to deliver your email to your inbox. You can whitelist senders or labels, so those important emails continue to deliver in real-time while others stay held outside of your Inbox.
Check out the full list of features for DNDEMail or sign up today.
