Who Gets to Interrupt You?

Permission by Default

When you install a new app, the very first thing it asks is if you want to “Allow notifications.” I always say no.

Not because I never want to hear from the app, but because I want to decide later if it deserves that permission. That’s the key word: permission.

We live in a decidedly attention-driven life, and interruptions are the hidden tax. Every ping, badge, and banner is a little lever pulling you toward someone else’s outcomes, not yours. As I wrote last week in Don’t Accept the Defaults, those settings aren’t neutral—they’re designed to serve someone else’s agenda, not yours.

And if your phone or inbox feels like it’s overflowing—you’re not imagining it. Everyone’s fighting the same battle.

When Everything Becomes Noise

There was a time when notifications and interrupts weren’t a big thing. The house phone would ring. If you didn’t get it, someone else probably would. Or the answering machine would pick up. No big deal. Other than that it was someone ringing the doorbell or tapping you on the shoulder.

I got exposed to notifications and interruptions early in my career. I had a pager on my hip for two decades. OK, it was replaced by a BlackBerry but same basic principle. Back in those days in IT support, there were two schools of thought: notify me about everything, or only notify me if something’s broken.

It’s not an obvious choice. There is comfort in positive signals—“all systems are up,” “the reports finished running.” But I was in the limited-notifications camp. I’d rather assume things are working and only be interrupted if something needed my attention. Otherwise, the alerts stop being valuable. They’re just noise.

That lesson has stayed with me. When everything interrupts you, nothing really does.

The Hidden Weight of Interruptions

Interruptions don’t just waste seconds. They chip away at focus and clarity. Even the ones you think are small—an email you don’t read, an alert you swipe away—add up.

In Cognitive Load Is Real, I wrote about the invisible weight we carry around. Notifications are part of that weight.

My mentor Mike Ross put it simply: “The only thing important in life is how you spend your valuable time.” Attention is capital. Spend it wisely.

Writing Your Rules of Engagement

One thing remote work taught me is that managing interruptions isn’t just about you—it’s about teaching others how to work with you.

I’ve called this publishing your Rules of Engagement: when you’re available, the best way to reach you, where you can add value. Update your status. Block your work hours. Don’t just set an “out of office” for customers—do it for colleagues, too.

If you don’t set the rules, people will guess. And their guesses are rarely right.

That same discipline applies to your inbox. I unsubscribe from vendors and publications I don’t read. Yes, it’s “just an email,” but I still have to get through it to get to what matters.

Which brings me back to the real question: who—or what—actually deserves the right to interrupt you?

For me, the basics look like this: Do Not Disturb, Focus Mode, notifications off by default, a regular pruning of inboxes and subscriptions. But you don’t need to overhaul everything. Start small. One focus mode. One inbox cleanup. One rule of engagement. That’s how you start designing your attention environment instead of living by default.

From Slack Pings to Smart Agents

Leaders have an even bigger responsibility. Every Slack ping or “quick question?” adds to your team’s cognitive load. Culture starts at the top. Do you respect people’s attention? Do you set clear expectations?

As I wrote in I’ll Call You Back, uncertainty is often worse than delay. Managing attention is part of managing expectations.

And what about the future? Agents, like much of AI, could create interruptions at scale. My hope is the opposite—that they become filters, triaging what really matters and giving us back more control. Imagine agents that learn your preferences, shield you from noise, and surface only what deserves attention. Less noise. More signal.

Berkson’s Bits

The next frontier for productivity is figuring out how to use the 30 minutes you wait for that Deep Research GPT response that will save you three hours of work. You never remove a bottleneck—you just move it. Once the low-hanging fruit is gone, the real test is what you do with the time you get back.

What I’m Listening To

This is on loop for me right now. I've always loved the Bruno Mars version of this song. And I wasn’t familiar with Jamie Cullum until he popped up on my YouTube Music feed. The premise for him here is to learn and record a new song live in an hour. I think he did a pretty good job.

Here's Uptown Funk performed by Jamie Cullum.

You can’t control every interruption. But you can control your defaults. 
You can control your rules of engagement. 
You can decide who has permission to pull at your attention.

So ask yourself again: who—or what—actually deserves the right to interrupt you?

Because interruptions are the hidden tax. And your attention is too valuable to give away by default.

I have homework for you. Spend a day—or even just an hour—tracking how many things interrupt you. Then, turn some off. And tell me how that works out for you.

Looking forward to continuing the conversation…

Alan