Thank you Paul. You're completely right. The number of those apps, who have the potential, to disturb you, is so overwhelming. We don't live in a perfect world and so it's up to us to restrict the apps to a minimum.
Our company, that is Microsoft driven, we use the full suite of Office 365, which is fine. On the personal side I use the Apple eco system. Unfortunately, apps are available on each platform, but they do not perform not well. I. e. Apple's Notes is not too bad, but if you're work in the Windows system, bringing a note into this app is a pain. So my approach is Evernote. I've often tried to reduce the number of apps, but if I do that, my productivity level shrinks.
I usually open my mail tool twice a day. At 10:00 am and 03:00 pm. Also my chat apps, Teams (for business) and Skype (for personal). Since our company decided to offer work remote completely or work in the office, the number of meetings increased extremely. So, setting boundries has become more important. It also means, that reducing the available time online within these apps, is a crucial part of my daily work. I'm the head of development and I have no problems to decide whats important and what's not. But for my work mates, who now are disconnected, cause we work remotly, it's much easier to ask someone who can decide for them (or all). But the point is, that with every decision I do for (and not were done by my work mates), I prevent them from self development, which is bad. So, to disconnect is part of my strategy that work mates should go out of their own comfort zone.
Another point, that you've mentioned is, that sometimes we do not fully set boundries what content goes into this app, and what goes into the other. So we use different apps for doing the same work. My approach was to de-install all apps on my phone where I was not sure, if they are my most used app. And funnily enough I'd never installed them again.
Finally, good work (as usual). Very valuable.
Thank you
Heiko

Thanks Paul. This all makes a lot of sense. I must admit that although I do not struggle too much in this space, it is because i use your #1 recommendation a lot! I don't use many of the tools that most people use today like Twitter, Instagram, hardly ever use FaceBook and in fact the only social medium I typically use (as I was an early adopter) is Linked-In. I also once got rid of WhatsApp and Viber (remember that?) from my phone! I did not miss it and people eventually realized that if they wanted me they needed to just call or text, if it was urgent, or send me an email.
Training people so that they know how to reach you is key! In this case less is more! Thanks for sharing!
Cheers

Really good post, thanks for sharing! The funny thing is that I know all of this already, but reading it just reminds me of WHY taking control of where your attention goes is crucial to getting s*** done. I work for a very successful global company that's been remote since Day One 15 years ago, so you'd think we would be masters at focus and being conscientious about our valuable attention and how essential it is to be mindful of inputs in order to do high-level work...but we still struggle! We are constantly sharing strategies on how to manage the deluge of notifications that threatens to overwhelm us. On top of that, my extended family and network of friends are scattered around the world, and each region has their own comms preferences: my friends in Africa only use WhatsApp, and my family in Southeast Asia swear by Viber. I use Telegram with my American-based family members and Signal with my husband. To try and keep the noise down, I don't use Facebook or Instagram, and I mostly ignore Twitter and LinkedIn, and with others I just default to the standard IM app on my Android, which a lot of people hate but it's also super convenient and easy. I do need to get better about checking email (which I do multiple times a day), though, not only because it would help me to maintain a more sustained focus to my work, but also, as you pointed out, train others to NOT expect an instant reply as if it were messages. It's not as if I work for a company racing to cure cancer or Covid. We're in software -- they can call me if it's a true emergency, and it never is.