The most important setting on your phone...

It's not turning on iCloud to back up files. Configuring your Wi-Fi? Nope.

Without question, it's making sure to never EVER allow an app to send you notifications. Do not enable this productivity killer unless you're damn sure you want that app to be pinging you about everything under the sun. In the tech world, this is called " audience engagement." In the real world, it's called being "clingy" (like dating someone who texts you 24/7 about the most banal things because they're highly insecure).

"Engagement" sounds like a benign term, but it's code for "Distract-You-From-Things-That-Are-Actually-Important" so your phone can suck you back into its spiraling vortex of shite.

"Don't Allow" should really say, "Hell @#$%^& No."

After installing an app on your mobile device, it's typically one of the first screen prompts you'll get. I'm sure smartphone manufacturers and tech firms are banking on us reflexively tapping "Allow" the way we're usually brain dead when it comes to reviewing thing like Terms & Conditions. "Yeah, whatever, scroll, blah, blah, blah, accept, click the checkbox, hit 'OK,' let's get this show on the road, I got hashtags to post and Twitter beefs to partake in!"

But don't fall for it. In the words of Admiral Ackbar, "It's a trap!" It's bad enough when one app harasses you non-stop. But then when it's like 80 apps? Oh, the horror. Now, there are a few apps on my iPhone where I do enable notifications. The native "Messages" app (though only a select few people make it past the "Hide Alerts" firewall). The "Phone" app, of course (hey, if someone's going to make the effort to call, it's gotta be somewhat important, robocallers not withstanding). And then the "Calendar" app, so space-cadet me doesn't overlook a loved one's birthday, as I'm so inclined to do.

But that's it. Anything more than that is just fragmenting my already splintered attention away from something important, and diverting it back to this little pocket computer that sometimes moonlights as a phone. Nothing else is that important. And if it is, I'll make the effort to seek it out myself.

Just like I'm really intentional about what foods I eat, how much I sleep, or how I utilize the 16 waking hours in the day, I'm the same way about disabling phone notifications. If the phone is going to pull my focus away from what I'm doing, it better be good.

As the saying goes, "there's nothing more important than what you're doing, when you're doing it."