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The Power of Intentional Alerting

Lessons from Personal Tech and Enterprise IT​

Notifications and alerts are ubiquitous in our always-on, hyper-connected world. But as I’ve learnt from personal experience and my work in enterprise IT, more alerts don’t necessarily mean better outcomes. In fact, over-alerting can be downright counterproductive.

My journey with intentional alerting began with my Apple Watch. At first, I was thrilled to have every app sending me real-time updates. But I quickly found myself overwhelmed by the constant buzzing on my wrist. I was being pulled out of the moment, distracted from what I was doing, all to check alerts that were rarely urgent or actionable.

So I made a change. I disabled notifications for everything except the essential real-time communications that I need to respond to immediately, like calls, texts, and critical messaging apps. The result? I’m more focused, less stressed, and I’ve reclaimed control over my attention.

This principle of intentional alerting is just as powerful in the world of IT, especially networking. Too often, organisations adopt a “more is better” approach to alerts, either leaving every possible notification enabled or hesitating to turn any off for fear of missing something important. The result is a firehose of alerts that quickly overwhelms teams and leads to alert fatigue and lack of ownership.

The solution is to be ruthlessly intentional about which alerts are enabled and how they’re managed. Every alert should have a clear owner and a defined action plan. If you can’t articulate who is responsible for an alert and what they should do about it, that’s a red flag that the alert may not be necessary.

One effective tool for this is what I call an “alert dictionary” — a centralised resource that maps out key information for each alert, such as:

  • Who owns the alert

  • What specific actions should be taken in response

  • The urgency level of the alert

  • How the alert should be delivered based on its urgency (email, text, page, etc.)

Documenting this in a wiki or knowledge base makes it accessible to the whole team and easier to keep updated. Importantly, the very process of articulating these details for each alert forces intentionality. It quickly reveals which alerts are truly essential and which are just noise.

For example, an alert about a redundant power supply failure might warrant an email to the service desk to open a ticket with the vendor for a replacement. But it likely doesn’t justify paging a senior engineer in the middle of the night.

By being deliberate about alerting, IT teams can reduce stress, improve responsiveness, and ensure they’re not missing the forest for the trees. Less noise means more bandwidth for what matters most.

The payoff of intentional alerting extends beyond the walls of IT. In a world of information overload, we could all benefit from being more mindful about the alerts we enable in our personal and professional lives. By filtering out the noise, we create space for focus, productivity, and presence.

It’s a small shift that can make a big difference. So whether it’s your smartwatch or your network monitoring system, I encourage you to take a hard look at your alerts. Keep the ones that are truly essential, and have the courage to silence the rest. Your attention (and your team) will thank you.