The case for permanent Do Not Disturb

I’m someone who leaves their phone on Do Not Disturb 24/7. First, it’s a built-in feature on my iPhone (and on Android, too). What I’ve noticed: Permanent DND changes your relationship to your phone. It becomes something you check when you want to, not a slab of glass that invokes a menacing Pavlovian response to check it every 30 seconds. If you need to call me, I won’t answer—unless you’re my best friend and you just had a baby.

You can keep DND on while letting important alerts through. Here’s how to set it up on your iPhone:

• Go to Settings > Focus > Do Not Disturb.
• Under both People and Apps, you can choose who can bypass DND (e.g. family, close friends, Slack during work hours). For the true VIPs in your life: If you want their calls/texts to make a sound even with DND on, open their contact, tap Edit under Ringtone or Text Tone, and toggle on Emergency Bypass.
• Also under People and Apps, you can let repeated calls from anyone break through in an emergency by toggling on Allow Repeated Calls.
• Under Apps, toggle on Time Sensitive Notifications for things like delivery updates.
• If you still want alerts to show when you're using your phone, go to Options > Silence Notifications and switch this to While Locked.
• If you want different settings for different situations, like work or when you’re at the gym, at the bottom of your Do Not Disturb settings, you can add different Focus Filters to fully customize what you have access to when that filter is on.

Personally, I’m of the mind that DND works best with the fewest exceptions, with my lockscreen staying blissfully black. Let us know what you think of permanent DND. —WK