Overnotification is not a proper word, obviously. However, for me it means that one has reached the state where he simply cannot do any useful work anymore, due to notification task switching. In layman CS terms, person is thrashing.

Are there ways to combat this?

Sure, most of the modern operating systems already include a mode, called “quiet” or “night”. Notifications then become silent and simply do not intrude our focus.

Of course, notifications these days may come directly from browser itself, phone, smart watch, etc. All these little screens/pop-ups are crazy destroyers of focused thought – simply turn them off. A simple procedure I usually follow is to have only one screen active – mobile is offline, with screen turned away from me, smartwatch (proud-yet-angry Pebble owner) in quiet mode, quiet mode set on computer and with notifications usually turned off in my browser. I achieve greater levels of focus working like this, leading to much more efficient use of my time.

Sometimes people need to contact you and want to get immediate answer. I tell them that in cases of urgency, they should call. Or send IM. Otherwise send email. As you can see, the order of appearance denotes the level of urgency. This procedure has a simple benefit – it educates people on what urgency actually is. Namely, when people call you with seemingly BIG problem that you can solve in seconds, this is not urgent. It simply shows they didn’t do their “due diligence” when searching for solution. Punish such behaviour at all costs and always.

I am intentionally going for shorter chunks of my time when addressing notifications. I make time for them, when I am ready. This enables me to work focused in longer stings and make the difference

Treat your time with respect, defend it at all costs.

I guess this is a practical guide to Deep Work. Funnily enough, all the approaches defined above motivated me to go, buy and read Deep Work (as reviewed in my blog post) :).