If you are a knowledge worker, there is no doubt getting frequent notifications is a mixed blessing as you make sure you are on top of everything without having to search for what’s new. My friend in Sardinia, Luca Filigheddu explains how much stress you can relieve by turning off all the notifications and in general I agree.

I get an email every few moments it seems so I do not use email alerts but I do have alerts for some Twitter and Facebook functions as well as news alerts for a number of news apps on my devices. Perhaps I should turn them off – as they do get annoying and they show up on all my mobile devices.

The one certainty is as we keep installing more apps – the opportunity for us to turn on notifications increases and if we aren’t careful, we slowly decrease our productivity as interuptions are the enemy of concentration.

Avaya’s Phil Edholm told me years back that your brain can adjust to multitasking and excel at becoming interrupt-driven. In other words, ADHD can be induced. But even though we seem to be able to cope with increasing message and interrupt frequency, it doesn’t mean we should strive for it.

Perhaps the ideal situation is to pull messages during meals, coffee breaks and snacks. That way you aren’t too out of touch and you can also be productive.

Now I have to remember to change my status to “away” on all my IM clients. BTW I realize how ironic this post likely is from perhaps the biggest SIP evangelist on the planet.