Tom’s Tech Tip: Turn Down Your Computer’s Notifications to Get More Done

If you’re a busy legal nurse consultant who’s using Windows^® 10 you’ve probably noticed that the “out of the box” installation is pretty noisy. It’s like babysitting a two-year-old. There are noises, or more properly sound alerts, when Windows goes to sleep, when it wakes, when programs open or close. Then there are noises for reminders, incoming email, outgoing email and, sometimes it seems, just random noises to amuse itself or whenever it feels neglected or ignored.

Some of these are helpful, I especially like the appointment reminders but a lot of the other alerts are just plain bothersome, often causing me to look up just to see what it’s trying to tell me. Go into your Control Panel and click on Sounds. Here you have the options to change, add or silence all of the different alert notifications, even the start-up and shut-down sounds. As Vickie recommends, I’m all over turning off the noisy email notifications. But I recommend that you go beyond that and turn off just about every other distracting sound that you don’t need or want. You can even customize the sounds to make them a little more useful (but I just turn them off).

Take some time today and sort through the sounds you don’t need versus the ones that are helpful. When you find yourself enjoying the sound of silence, your productivity in your legal nurse consulting business will soar.

Keep on Techin’,