Allowing Specific Users to Bypass Do Not Disturb Settings

If you use your smart phone for most of your communication, whether that be via messages, calls, emails, or something else altogether, you probably never turn your phone off. A quick reboot when it is necessary is often the only time it is off. The downside to always having your phone on is receiving notifications 24 hours a day. From disturbing sleep to interrupting meetings or your most focused work, constant notifications can become one of your worst distractions.

Using the Do Not Disturb feature is a great way to get some quiet time. However, it is important to understand how this feature works to ensure important communication can still be accomplished.

Allowing Specific Users to Bypass Do Not Disturb Settings

The purpose of the Do Not Disturb setting is to silence incoming notifications so they are not interruptive. The helpfulness of the Do Not Disturb feature can be overshadowed if those people you would always want to hear from cannot reach you. This is why it is important to understand how the Do Not Disturb feature works to properly modify its settings.

Enabling Do Not Disturb on an iPhone to allow specific users to bypass its settings

• Click Settings and select "Do Not Disturb".
  
  
  
• In the Do Not Disturb settings modify the following items as desired. 
• Manual or scheduled - decide whether you want to manually enable Do Not Disturb or if you want the feature to automatically enable for specific periods of time.
  
  
  
• Who to allow calls from - the standard options are Everyone, No One, and Favorites. There are also Groups, like All Contacts and any other group of contacts you have created and linked to the device.
  
  
  
• When to silence - when Do Not Disturb is enabled, by default all calls and alerts are silenced when the phone is locked and while the phone is unlocked, alerts behave normally. This setting can be set so that all calls and alerts are always silenced regardless of whether the phone is locked or unlocked.
  
  
  
• Once modifications are made, simply close the settings app. If you have manually enabled the Do Not Disturb feature, be sure to disable it when finished so notifications of calls and alerts will behave normally.

The Do Not Disturb feature can be extremely effective in filtering out some of the noise that accompanies notifications. Controlling who gets through the filter is important and allows enough control to make the feature useful. An additional benefit is being able to set it to enable automatically based on a preset schedule. Lastly, silencing alerts only when the phone is locked, or at all times, is a setting that provides advantages for different situations.

Whatever the reason for needing some time sans notifications, whether it is to focus on an important deadline, to recover from alert fatigue, or simply to rest, this feature is invaluable in providing the controls to get this time away.

As always, knowing how to control features that already exist is an important part of being effective with technology!

Enjoy this post? Subscribe to our Blog