We have many things vying for our attention in the digital age.

Email, LinkedIn, YouTube, various other social media, WhatsApp, phone and much more are constantly beeping with notifications.

This can be a big hindrance to productivity. In addition, it usually results in stress and the feeling of losing control over one’s life.

The remedy? As successful businessman and mentor Dan Lok advises, you should not have your notifications turned on if you want to focus and succeed.

In fact, what you need is selective notification.

So you can focus on what really matters and not have your attention diverted to the unimportant.

This means switching on those notifications that help you achieve your goals, while turning off all other notifications on your phone, tablet, and laptop.

You should have at most only 2 or 3 notifications turned on.

Email is not one of them.

What you need is selective notification.

You don’t want to be checking and replying to emails every 1/2 hour. Nor is it urgent to do so.

Instead, with the email notifications turned off, you can regulate your schedule so you only check your email once in the morning and once before the workday ends.

Other notifications such as social media and LinkedIn should be turned off too.

Likewise YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and Facebook Messenger.

 I have them all off.

So what notifications should you have on?

Only that which you must do right away, such as a zoom meeting, collaboration app with team workers, scheduling app or Google calendar, a fitness app.

Whatever is urgent, needs to be done at a set scheduled time, and helps you reach your goals, you should have notifications for so you don’t miss them.

All else can wait a few hours or days.