Spend any time working and also you’re more likely to get interrupted with notifications—whether or not it is incoming emails, system updates, new alerts, a pop-up concerning the subsequent monitor in your playlist, or all of them collectively. This barrage of distractions makes it difficult to maintain your circulation and keep targeted.

Microsoft feels your ache, and it has added a function referred to as Focus in Windows 11. It can be utilized to pause all or some notifications for a set time period, in addition to monitor what you get performed throughout that point. You select how lengthy these intervals are, and you’ll entry the function from varied components of the working system.

Exactly how Focus works is as much as you, but when wanted it could activate Do Not Disturb in Windows, disguise notification badges on taskbar icons, cease taskbar icons from flashing, and present a timer onscreen. If you select to allow Do Not Disturb, you will not see any notifications pop up—they’re going to all be delivered quietly to the Notification Center.

Once your Focus session is over, you possibly can open up Notification Center (by clicking on the time and date within the decrease proper nook) to see what you missed. While it is not essentially the most refined of productivity-boosting instruments, Focus appeals in its simplicity and accessibility, and it’s possible you’ll discover it turns into a key a part of your day by day workflow.

How to Use Focus

Do Not Disturb is a giant a part of Focus, so it is price getting this arrange the best way you need it. Open up Settings from the Windows Start menu, then click on System, Notifications, and Set precedence notifications. This permits you to specify which apps and occasions are vital sufficient to override the default Do Not Disturb conduct (the place notifications are quietly delivered to the Notification Center within the background).

Further down on the Notifications menu, you are capable of customise the best way notifications work for particular person apps: You can have some apps not present up within the Notification Center both, for instance, and you’ll change the precedence of app notifications (larger precedence alerts seem larger up within the Notification Center listing).

With that performed, you possibly can configure Focus. Open up Settings from the Windows Start menu, then click on System (on the left) and Focus (on the fitting). You’ll see you possibly can customise how the mode operates: whether or not or not Do Not Disturb is enabled whilst you’re focusing, whether or not or not a timer seems, and so forth. You also can set the default period for a Focus session.