Every buzz in your pocket is a stranger asking to borrow your mind. You’re allowed to say no.

A notification is a request rather than an instruction. Someone, or more often something, is asking for a piece of your attention, and the design of the buzz is meant to make the asking feel like an obligation. There is nothing wrong with saying yes to plenty of them. The useful part is remembering that it was ever a question.

Turn off the notifications from whatever has the least claim on you, and leave the ones from actual people. Then check on your own schedule rather than theirs, a few times a day. You are not trying to use the phone less, only to be the one deciding when.