Most people have a handful of apps installed that get opened only once in a while, if at all. Even so, many of these apps are still allowed to make a sound or light up the screen whenever something happens inside them, regardless of how rarely they're actually used.
Over time, these small interruptions add up, even though each one seems harmless on its own. It's easy to overlook just how many apps are quietly allowed to wake the screen, until you sit down and actually count how often it happens throughout an ordinary day.
Go through your apps one by one
Take a few minutes to go through your apps and ask yourself, for each one, when you last actually opened it. If the answer isn't clear straight away, that's usually a good sign the app's notifications are due for a review.
Turn off sound and screen wake for anything that clearly doesn't need your immediate attention, while keeping notifications for the apps that genuinely matter to you. This way, you don't lose track of anything important, just the constant background noise from everything else.
It's also worth checking whether some apps are set to wake the screen for things you'd never actually act on straight away, such as general updates or suggestions. These are usually the easiest ones to switch off first, since you rarely miss anything by doing so.
Once this review is done, the phone tends to feel noticeably calmer to have nearby, whether at work or at home. It becomes much easier to tell the difference between what genuinely needs a quick response and what was simply background noise all along.
