Apps on my smartphone have a strict "one strike and you're out" policy. As soon as they raise an unwanted notification, the sledgehammer comes out and their privileges get permanently revoked.

Developers: I don't care how important you think your news is, uninvited notifications are a red line for me.

The software industry used to have a much more humane baseline in terms of the unwritten rules for how we treat our audience. Phone-home telemetry, intrusive interruptions, addictive design... it really grinds my gears how user-hostile computing has become. This will make me sound like a craggy old fart, but I liked it better when coding was harder and demanded more craftsmanship and skill... I feel like it attracted builders with better judgement and ethical standards more aligned to my own. In other fields, engineers bear personal liability for their work (eg. bridge fails, the professional who signed off will bear scrutiny). I sympathize not everyone is in a position to do so, but I would quit my job before agreeing to the kind of dirty tactics we're seeing from tech giants these days.

Unfortunately banking apps are the biggest violators of this. The notifications are necessary because "click this to approve your credit card purchase". But they also come with "SPEND $5 WITH YOUR CARD AND WIN A FREE GOLD BAR" notifications.

Leave your phone on silent permanently, setup your emergency contacts like partner and kids to ring on silent, and turn off all notifications except email and SMS/WhatsApp. That’s the key to a simple life. You won’t miss anything important and that realization is the most freeing.

And yes to your PPPS. My plan is to live out my favorite childhood book The Alchemist in New Zealand while retracing the LOTR filming sites with a herd of sheep and a shepherds crook. One of the sheep will be fitted with solar panels and Starlink though, cause I just gotta have my Love After Lockup.

Edit: and to be clear it doesn’t have to be an all or nothing thing. You can reenable notifications on a per app basis (and on Android per notification type I believe). You can turn them on for an app for a few days to see how intrusive their notifications are. Just make it a habit to turn them off at the drop of a hat with extreme prejudice. If you need stuff for work make rules and automations to turn stuff on and off based on triggers.

> Leave your phone on silent permanently, setup your emergency contacts like partner and kids to ring on silent, and turn off all notifications except email and SMS/WhatsApp. That’s the key to a simple life. You won’t miss anything important and that realization is the most freeing

This is pretty similar to my setup. Always on do not disturb. Typically my family and close friends communicate through a chat app, that doesn't make sound but if it's time sensitive an sms or call will make sound for starred contacts.

Back on the day when phones had notification LEDs I'd setup apps to have specific colours. These days with always on OLED displays I use an app aodNotify to setup a a little spinning circle on the screen. Purple is family/friend chat app, blue is a call, green sms etc.

Everything else I periodically poll for information. ie I go out of my way to check emails etc

Agreed. On my phone I turned off most of my notifications, and on my computer I turned off all of them.

I couldn't find any way to actually turn off notifications in MacOS. But you can set "quiet hours" to be from 2:00 AM until 1:59 AM.

Turn off all notifications except SMS and phone. Change email to pull, not push. Delete all social media apps, use the phone browser for it. Remove all work applications from your phone. Either you’re working or you’re not, no in between where you get pulled in against your will (I have a work phone provided by my company, so it’s easier).

I did this 8 years ago and I can’t recall anything important that I have missed. I can still look at email/social media/whatever in the browser or I sit down at my tablet/laptop. I still have Spotify and YouTube on my phone, but I try to limit entertainment apps on it.

> Delete all social media apps, use the phone browser for it.

This doesn't really work with Facebook - it tells you to get the mobile app instead.

I deleted Facebook completely around ten years ago, never regretted it.

Last year deleted the LinkedIn mobile app, and oddly enough LinkedIn now wants me to verify my identity using a govt id. What a coincidence.

This works for some people. But for me, Facebook introduces nothing negative because I don’t follow any ragebait stuff, and instead get updates from people I (somehwat) know, and bands I’m interested in.

I like all the community groups that I'm part of on it. There isn't really any substitute for that.

I dislike pretty much everything else on there though, especially all the stupid videos and stuff it shows.

I use Android's private space for social media and banking apps. Accessible when I need them, but not running by default.

https://support.google.com/android/answer/15341885?hl=en

Interesting, had no idea that existed - thanks.

Facebook has a website, and it works inside mobile browsers. When are you finding it impossible to use that way?

On FF Android, for me, https://facebook.com/messages redirects to https://m.facebook.com/messages, and just shows a message telling me to get the Messenger app.

It seems to trigger based on the browser window being too small. Yes, it is possible to access messages by requesting the desktop site, but it's pretty inconvenient.

Using it for messaging is different. I took "the mobile app" to mean the Facebook app with the timeline, groups, etc... (com.facebook.katana on Android), which also doesn't let you access messages. They really seem to want to promote their Messenger app as a distinct product.

I'm not sure messaging can work well in a mobile browser because notifications would not be timely, but maybe you're using it for a purpose that doesn't require instant notifications.

The app I use is actually "Facebook Lite" and it does include Messenger.

>maybe you're using it for a purpose that doesn't require instant notifications.

Yeah, generally if I'm messaging in Facebook, it's someone I don't know well - often kind of temporary connection through a community group, like arranging a time to exchange a second hand thing. I'm happy to manually check when needed. (That is, back when I used to use this method before I gave up and got the app.)

This comment does give a bit of insight into why Facebook tries to prevent people using mobile browsers for messaging though.

I was aware of Facebook Lite and had it installed at some point when I was more willing to use Facebook. I (probably wrongly) remember it not having messaging, because there is or was a separate Messenger Lite application.

Yeah, I used to have Messenger Lite, but they discontinued that.

I should probably consider switching to full Messenger, and not browsing FB at all on my phone.

Switch browser to desktop mode, works for me

As I wrote:

> Yes, it is possible to access messages by requesting the desktop site, but it's pretty inconvenient.

Why do you want to use Facebook?

I find I leave the 'important' apps open longer, trying to recheck if I got a notification.

I don’t have this problem. Every notification is one I find useful. If I get a useless notification I immediately take action to prevent them from giving me more. I rarely go back and re-enable notifications

Don't enable anything you don't need. Use the OS-native priority modes; i.e. no Slack messages after 18:00, no general message notifications unless from specific contacts, disable web browser notifications universally etc. no notifications for unknown sources (seems to be an issue in some countries).

It also really depends on how you perceive the alerts on a device; some people have lots of feelings when they see a dot or a number on an icon, others might not care or give it any attention. If such things are a distraction for you, turn them off. Unless they give you value or have an important meaning, they are not worth your attention.

Depending on your hardware/software vendor, it might be capable of synchronisation between multiple devices so you don't end up getting notifications anyway, and it might have multiple profiles with time boxes, or location-aware or event-aware profiles. Some of them are self-learning (to various degrees of usefulness), but either way, reduce the device to what you need it for.

With time, I've been revoking the ability of more and more apps to deliver notifications. The vast majority of the notifications these days are just pointless ads anyway.

> I've spent hours and hours unsubscribing, deleting, uninstalling, toggling settings, but then I find myself reinstalling, resubscribing.

Therapy, counseling, or addiction treatment. You’re opting into this problem cyclically. Whether that qualifies as a proper addiction or not is irrelevant: until you seek professional therapy, you are unlikely to make further progress alone.

> I find myself reinstalling, resubscribing

Why? What is so important about these things that you felt the need to do this after getting rid of them?

Move from push to pull everywhere you can. Don't sign up for email notifications from a website, subscribe to their RSS feed, if you really want to follow the site. Then you choose when you get those updates.

When a website emails me marketing material, I find it offensive. I don't care if it's a good deal, I don't want it on principle. You need to draw a hard line and have boundaries.

What needs an actual notification that will interrupt you, vs just being in an inbox that you can look at when you want?

I turned text notifications off from one of my best friends, because he never sends me anything meaningful that needs immediate response. I just look at whatever he sent when I'm bored. Be ruthless.

Each time a notification pops up, ask yourself if it's more important than your friend's birthday, because that noise is what caused you to miss the notification you cared about.

In the early 2010s, especially as smartphones began to appear everywhere, I noticed that, along with the desktop, we now had another perpetual Disturber of Peace. One of the worst things turned out to be Notifications, something not under your control, that derails your chain of thoughts/works/routine. Ever since, I had kept every notification disabled by default.

The world is becoming increasingly low-trust; hence, the default is no longer to “allow,” but to filter through a “whitelist.”

Disable all Notifications by Default.[1] This is best done at the time of app installation. When asked to “Allow Notifications,” disable it right then and there. Of course, depending on your occupation and needs, a few critical notifications should be kept ON. This will be less than 10% of your app. More than 90% of the apps on your device have no reason to notify you of anything.

And here is a weird but interesting thing - disable battery percentages everywhere. Personally, not on the phone and neither on the Laptop; if it dies, it dies.

A simple passive notification that can keep you on your toes and stress you out the most - phone battery percentage indicator. We have become so obsessed with ‘juicing up’ our phones that our levels of happiness and relaxation decrease exponentially as the battery percentage drops.

Even in 2026, I hear people’s phones make a sound when a message/email arrives. If I follow that, my phone will sing all day long.

“Never be so dependent on technology that a notification is the only thing that brings you hope.”

Personally, I have a different take on birthdays and have conflicting views. So, I’m sorry about that.

1. https://brajeshwar.com/2014/missing-step-productivity-activi...

As much as I agree with everything you said I can’t just let it die. If I’m on public transport without juice I may get fined for not having a ticket. There is no non-smartphone-on option available in my country anymore.

> cacophony of notifications, emails, texts and phone calls

This is not true for me at least. All group chats are default muted. I rarely get phone calls and maybe a handful people text me on a given day. My email is actively curated, almost no business has perms to email me and standard outlook spam filters seem to work well enough.

I don't think any other apps have perms to make notifications. None of it is important.

> I've spent hours and hours unsubscribing, deleting, uninstalling, toggling settings, but then I find myself reinstalling, resubscribing

why do you find yourself re-connecting to the notification spam? The real root of your problem is there, not anywhere else.

I basically just disable notifications for everything except apps that are useful and don't send promotional push notifications. It does mean that I need to "poll" for messages sent to my IG but if it's important I'll shift the conversation to another app.

I've always seen the main issue being people who "don't mind" or otherwise tolerate notifications because they're non-technical or don't realise how precious their attention is.

What are your top 5 apps that give you notifications? Seems strange to want less notifications but not know how to achieve this.

You have to start curating your attention and start treating it as a resource.

Stop using social media, which is a business model that is fighting for attention and cannot survive without it.

Smartphones are user hostile designs, use a laptop with KDE or GNOME on it. Both desktop environments allow to filter notifications to the point that you can decide what type of notifications are allowed to appear.

Always remember: every app that is free to use is paid for with your attention.

I use reminders in Slack frequently ("remind me in 3 hours" or "remind me tomorrow / next week").

They work fine as reminders, but I am starting to hate the way notifications are implemented. I often use "remind me tomorrow" that will notify me at 9am. The problem is that I often have multiple reminders triggering its own notification popup with sound on my phone.

I don't think the Slack PMs actually use their products. Every morning is a race against time to either snooze the reminders before they trigger (which is counter-productive) or bury my phone inside my hand to limit the noise pollution if I am too late. The desktop version has its own issues, because the notifications is layered above the unmute button in my daily Teams meeting and once I manage to dismiss one of them, another pops up. I swear I could have made an entire stand-up bit about this if I had any comedic talent.

To Slack: Can you please just notify me with a single notification when multiple reminders trigger at the same time?

You asked for tools/methods.

> I've spent hours and hours unsubscribing, deleting, uninstalling, toggling settings,but then I find myself reinstalling, resubscribing

You already know the tools and methods. This is more of a psychology issue rather than technology. You need some sort of dopamine detox. I'm not a professional, there are probably professionals out there that can help but here's some random thoughts of what that might look like:

* Take a week off work and turn off all notifications. Tell work you are unavailable.

* Write anything important down on paper that happens in the next two weeks: birthdays, events, appointments, etc. so you don't miss them. A paper calendar planner works.

* Turn off the phone if you can. If you need it for travel - uninstall everything unnecessary and keep all the notifications off. Phone, maps, airline, Uber, SMS, web browser are really all you need. You could ditch the airline app and just get paper boarding passes.

* Do something, anything, that doesn't involve computers/phone and notifications.

my phone is always on silent. i've drastically reduced what apps can send notifications over the years. new apps don't get notification permissions unless i know what i'm going to get.

>the deluge and cacophony of notifications, emails, texts and phone calls I imagine we are all getting inundated with everyday with increasing entropy and volume.

I don't think I experience this?

My general strategy is to disable all notifications for Android apps except messaging. Phone is always on silent, so I don't get random calls.

I definitely get a lot of crap emails though - so many where the company creates a new marketing list and subscribes you to it. You can unsubscribe from that one specifically but not future ones.

Dropbox did a particularly spammy thing recently. In the same week they emailed me to say I was running out of space and I needed to buy more, and then also they emailed to say I had space that I wasn't making the most of, and wouldn't I like to try these other features?

Do NOT put your phone on permanently silent so that phone calls don't ring.

Disable most notifications altogether, especially: email and any form of group messages (like WhatsApp group).

For 1-on-1 instant messages / SMS, display a silent notification.

For specific email, create a special notify tag and sparingly assign it to urgent threads and some sent messages. You can also use filters to assign the tag automatically.

Deny notifications for most apps.

All calls should ring. It may be something urgent even if you don't recognize the number. It may be someone close to you calling with a hospital phone before heading out to emergency surgery. It may be the police. This is why you don't want to default to blocking hidden numbers unless you really have to.

I recently find my solution to this on desktop Linux:

+ The machine has "Do not Disturb" on, forever.

+ My todo is a never ending text file. Every appointments are laid out on previous day with the following format:

  *- 09:00 do something*

+ There is a script that runs periodically that checks updates of my todo file, and creates systemd timers that will trigger "critical" level notifications that are not blocked by "Do not Disturb".

  *systemd-run --user --on-calendar="$trigger_time" --unit=$unit_name sh -c 'paplay "$1" && notify-send -u critical Appointment "$2"' _ "$SOUND" "$title"*

Wow almost no tool recs :/

I’m planning to demo superhuman for email but I really don’t want another sub so hopefully it’s not worth it.

I’ve got nothing for texts.

Phone makes unknowns say why they’re calling so I can pickup non spam.

Only core apps stay downloaded and very few get notification ability.

There’s some extension for your PS on cookies, think I saw it here the other day and forgot about it. Maybe this? I haven’t tried it though: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/consent-o-matic/mdj...

> I've spent hours and hours unsubscribing, deleting, uninstalling, toggling settings, but then I find myself reinstalling, resubscribing. It's just a mess, and exhausting to just think about.

So you subscribe to notifications you don’t want? Maybe what you need is a dumbphone instead that only has the basics like calendar reminders, calls, SMS? Though I guess 2FA anti-features might make that problematic.

I don’t think for your case the other solutions can really help when it’s you enabling the notifications. My phone only shows me notifications I do care to get.

On Android you have stock Digital Wellbeing app.

You can limit many things such us:

Number of notifications per day, Notifications on given hours, nighttime, work time etc, Notifications by application(!), Number of minutes/hours allowed per application before it goes into blocked state till the next day, break or end of work, Priority of notifications, Daily summary of notifications etc etc.

It helped me to cut down mobile screen time from like to 40m.

PS2 : Install Brave browser - it blocks all ads, popups and cookie questions forever. AND it let's you play youtube in the background

I feel this. One thing that helped me is separating “notifications” into 2 buckets: (1) interrupts (things that must break my focus) vs (2) queues (things I can review on my own schedule). Most apps only offer more interrupts. What I actually want is a daily/weekly review queue that surfaces the few items that map to active priorities.

Curious: what are the top 2–3 categories you never want to miss (people, deadlines, bills, health, etc.)? And where do they originate (email, calendar, Slack, SMS)?

my phone is on silent 24x7. it never makes a sound, ever. the only notifications I get are for email, slack dm's, bad weather, security camera, sms. no other app gets notif permissions.

i run adguard home (pihole, etc works too) for network-wide adblocking at the dns layer. this makes the internet tolerable ... without adblocking it's truly a heinous place.

on ios I use 'hush' extension to try and supress cookie popups etc but tbh I am not sure if it works that well, or maybe it is misconfigured.

these in-page nuisances are next on my list for sure: i don't ever want to see a "login with google?" context menu appear with all my listed accounts in the upper right. i never want to see another cookie popup, especially the ones that look like a raid configuration wizard from 2007 with 10 checkboxes and half the settings below the fold. in the browser you can completely disable the ability for a website to ask to send you notifications.

honestly the goal just needs to be a conscious effort to defend your attention. eliminate everything that is not serving you in that regard. go overboard, worst case you need to re-integrate some things you miss or need. but i genuinely think the #1 thing in the world right now to defend is attention and distraction.

If you’re like me and get inundated with spam texts from politicians begging for money, you can set up an app to filter texts from unknown contacts matching content patterns. I recently set up SpamHound but there are many options, and configured filters for the telltale begging signs like “text stop to quit”, “end2end”, and about 2 dozen other variants they come up with to sneak past these filters.

This is native on iOS now

The problem with limiting Slack to mentions is that it incentivizes colleagues to @-mention you just for visibility, which quickly defeats the purpose of the filter.

Use ThreadPatrol to automate thread enforcement, which keeps channel noise down and makes those selective notifications actually meaningful: https://thread-patrol.com

I don't have email hooked to my phone directly. If I do need it, I fire up gmail in a browser.

I don't have twitter, facebook, or any of the other apps that came by default. If I need those, I fire up chrome and use the web interface.

One exception is Discord, for contacting my child, but it doesn't start by default, and all the notifications are off for it as well.

Only texts and actual phone calls alert me.

On the iPhone, you can hide or remove every app aside from settings, safari, sms, phone, App Store, photos, and camera. I started there, and put phone on silent, and in greyscale.

Instead of the ‘push’ notifications, I have set times throughout the day to check my mail. I’m never interrupted and it turned out that it’s ok to let some fires burn

Disable everything. I pretty much only leave them on for one email address, text, Uber Eats and the WSJ/Bloomberg.

Uber Eats is a plague. If you leave notifications on they constantly trigger one to make you open the app and clear it.

There’s a way somewhere deep in settings to disable those. I still have UberEats notifications for food arrival, but was able to disable all other ones while digging through all the settings

If you remember how please let me know because I could not figure it out last time I tried.

yes, it's a tragedy but I need to know my food is arriving lol

Look at the webapp.

There was a recent Show HN [0] on this for Android, showcasing DoNotNotify [1] -

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46499646

[1]: https://donotnotify.com/

Your main problem is you have to much FOMO. Just keep notifications off for things you don't need.

I don't have any recommendations for notifications, texts, or phone calls, but for email custom clients help a lot. I use extra.email, have heard good things about Superhuman etc as well, it lets me customize notification settings by narrow categories

I made this open-source set of email filters. I've used it for years. The only email notifications I get are legit ones I need to know about.

https://unfuck.email

How hard / possible is it to use the rules in another mail provider?

Depends on which one. I think you can use the Fast mail ones in proton mail.

I had some success with batching. I have a daily report for my website, so that I can make sure everything is okay in one glance.

In general email is silent for me. I only see it when I check my inbox manually.

If you are on a Mac, I've built auto-focus.app which uses macOS's do not disturb feature when you are "in flow". It detects your work apps and triggers DnD after some time.

Get in the habit of tapping "Don't Allow" when apps ask for notification privileges. You don't need them. Open the app when you want to.

If you want to remember dates, how about a calendar printed on paper? A filofax?

Generally these days, the best solution is one that doesn't involve computers and big tech.

I had some success with batching. I have a daily report for my website, so that I can make sure everything is okay in one glance.

I just keep most of them disabled. I only keep mentions in Slack, DMs in Whatsapp, and that's about it.

I actively poll anything else.

We use a perpetual calendar just for birthdays on our bathroom wall. It is or used to be common in Holland.

I have all notifications turned off on my mobile devices, except for calls and SMS.

I use the same strategy for my computers as well.

If you send me a message or email I will eventually look it up and respond at appropriate time. If world is ending and someone needs urgent help they will call me.

Call me too many times and I'll put you on mute. I'll still get the notification but you'll have to wait till I have time to call you back, or more probable, I'll wait until you send me a text message stating your need.

One thing I hate the most is people calling on repeat. I'm old enough to remember times before mobiles and back then it had a purpose. Now it doesn't. If you call me once and I didn't picked it up that means I'm either busy or away. If you call again you're just annoying and I'll flag you as such.

One thing that may set me apart is that I still consider my phone to be just that. I lived the whole mobile revolution and from time to time I've tried installing different apps, but eventually the phone for me is just that - the phone. Calling and messaging. Sure I can browse, use maps, etc. but it's a communication device.

And when I don't want to communicate I just put it away. Problem solved.

[EDIT] Yes, you can still send me an email or a message through a messenger application, but unless I intentionally check the app I won't even know you're there.

Have dealt with the same issue.

Prefer mobile web over specific apps.

On your phone, turn on contacts-only for calls. Should also work for regular text messages.

If also using apps like WhatsApp there may be a similar app-level setting.

Get a couple of well reviewed ad blockers for your browser. I'm still astounded when I see people on their phones and dealing with ads. Especially YouTube. There are browser blockers that work for YouTube.

Adding to the previous point, never install/use a company's native app. You have NO control over that. Use their web version.

Addding to the previous point, iOS safari has an option to view any website in desktop mode. I imagine Android has something like that but I dunno. If a particular site has an annoying mobile web interface, try the desktop web version. If they don't allow that, use a different product. One case in point: I use Reddit heavily. I use old Reddit on web. Their app and mobile website are complete garbage.

Some ad blockers may help with the "accept cookies? Gdpr bullshit". I don't personally bother. They're fairly innocuous and the sites are collecting all cookies anyway so it doesn't matter.

The reason I'm not mentioning the specific web extensions I use is because despite being common and easy to find, I'm EXTREMELY hesitant to provide a curated list in a public forum that will get vacuumed up and probably lead to circumventions within a few weeks to months. This stuff is easy to find, is completely available in the platform-relevant app stores and only takes a little extra effort to customize after a couple of weeks of running into minor inconveniences. This isn't a "compile Linux from scratch" kind of problem.

> but then I find myself reinstalling, resubscribing

Why? Seems like a self-control issue

Send callers not in contact book to voicemail on ios

I disable all notifications except for:

* SMS (and WhatsApp) for direct communications (disabled for an hour or two when seeking flow).

* Phone calls from family and close friends (filter disabled for a few hours when expecting an important call from elsewhere)

* Mentions and DMs on Slack (work hours only)

* Calendar

* Occasional temporary exceptions (Airbnb and airline apps during travel and a few days before/after; Taskrabbit the day before and day of a task; food delivery when expecting one, etc.)

Everything else I try to be notified of through email, which is easier to manage on a pull rather than push basis. I DO NOT allow email notifications. That’s begging for a deluge.

The default when an app or site asks to send me push notifications is a hard NO.

This volume of notifications is very manageable.

Agree. I'll catch up on group chats that do not require immediate attention when it suits me, not when the stream of messages happens to arrive.

As for OP: read up on alert fatigue; if a notification isn't directly actionable, you shouldn't even see it!

The pull model for information is more durable for humans than the push model. Try RSS for news/blogs, take some time (preferably offline) each week to prepare for the important events in the upcoming week(s), write them down on something you pass by every day (such as a whiteboard near your front door).

I would very much like the option to collect all the notifications that aren't a direct message from someone I know into a digest to be shown to me a couple times a day. It should be inconvenient to open the digest manually, but convenient to grant a short-term exception to an app.

I'm disappointed phone operating systems don't provide this and half suspect they don't want to because it would reduce engagement with the phone.

agree, need a a solution for the cookies question

I usually hate MS, but WP7 was perfect in this regard. All the stuff in a feed that I check when I want to, nice and stress-free. Too bad it died because people wanted "apps" instead of communication devices.

On Android https://donotnotify.com/

This is fucking excellent. Especially since the companies do not honor their notification type.

I'll suggest an approach that works for me.

Ask yourself what it is you're actually doing / attending to / accomplishing, with regard to whatever notification you happen to see. Then identify similar ones; group them together; and work on that group at repeated intervals. It should feel like boring maintenance work — because the goal is to make work predictable in order to predictably achieve the outcomes you desire (and then to automate the work, if you want, to free up your time). This also helps to identify low-value types of activities and then deprioritize or eliminate them.

By way of your example, I want to take certain actions regarding special days involving people who are important to me (birthdays, holidays, anniversaries …). So periodically I attend to that because it's important. (Maybe that means I plan things out every week, or every month — up to you. And then the planned tasks — calling my buddy, shopping for gifts, writing and mailing cards — go on the calendar as planned work.) It's during that work period that I see triggers / upcoming items related to that group of items. Why would I want notifications or other interruptions about them any other time? Answer: only for things that are true emergencies. Maybe you should have a yearly repeating 15-minute calendar entry to call your friend on their birthday. (You are working from your calendar, right?)

The other tip I can offer is to do yesterday's incoming work today, and today's incoming work tomorrow. This lets you strategically plan how you will handle all of today's work instead of getting interrupted by it today and bouncing around trying to deal with it. Moreover, very few things need to be done immediately; many problems solve themselves with time; and sleeping on things can shift a large chunk of the time-consuming processing involved with it to your subconscious mind. (Furthermore, the habit of planning your work in advance and addressing it methodically is going to drastically reduce the number of true emergencies and even typical interruptions that you'll feel the need to deal with. It's a virtuous cycle.)

I'll leave you with the notions that practically everything is unimportant when you consider its place in the incalculable vastness of the universe; you never get your time back; and your health is of paramount importance.

P.S.: I somehow missed that you had the birthday on your calendar. This tells me that either you're not working from your calendar (big problem) or else you added the birthday as an all-day event instead of an appointment ("I will call my friend on their birthday every year at 12 PM and catch up for 15 minutes").