Ping! Ping! Ping!

The sound that emanates from your smartphone alerting you of a notification.

Is it a text, an email, Facebook, Powerschool, SI Play, Class Dojo, Bloomz, TeachReach, Snapchat, Twitter, or is it one of the other many apps providing alerts throughout your day?

Our smartphones may help us stay connected and make some tasks quicker, but, in their current design, they also contribute to making moms, like me, feel like their day is just one interruption after another.

In order to stay up-to-date on the life of your child or the events taking place in your community, one must visit multiple websites, various Facebook pages and groups, and the slew of apps specific for each activity.

A helpful or an annoying tool?

The development and use of these media tools was never meant to be time consuming nor make life more complicated, but in some ways they have. Finding the happy medium between their definite benefits and unfortunate costs is a task unto itself.

One of the most limited resources a parent has is time, so it is something that most parents can’t afford to waste.

In the event that you would forget to check an app or follow up on a thread, it can be a coin toss whether you missed important information, such as a change of location of a family gathering or maybe a practice time changed or that you simply missed the reminder that there is no school, which you knew because you already have a school calendar, got the all-call and the email about it.

Either way, the notifications will ring and need to be checked, despite the fact that the value of the information may not be the same.

To make matters worse, throw in the concept of the group message — you know, the kind that is meant to send out an announcement to your kids soccer team or a group text sent out to 15 members of your family about an upcoming event — and then brace yourself for the onslaught of pings from your phone as people reply, not just to the original message, but to specific members of the group.

Again, either way, you get them all.

How much time do we spend on pings?

The issue begs the question, how much of your day is spent online checking websites, texts, emails and apps?

That is not to say that there are not benefits to these tools; there are many. But the amount of time that staying “up to date” sucks away from your day is more than most people realize, and the cost is compounded by the way it invariably distracts you from other tasks.

It’s not that the information isn’t useful, it’s the fact that it comes from so many places in so many different forms, that gives it a dimension of diminishing returns.

How can we manage a sea of notification-load without drowning in it at the same time?

Don’t be afraid of your options

First of all, we can’t be afraid to set boundaries. We all have tasks in our lives that deserve our full attention, and most of us are guilty of allowing our phones to distract us while doing them. When we are engaged in such activities, we can’t be afraid to silence our phones or turn off notifications for set periods of time so we can focus.

The “Do Not Disturb” icon on your phone is perfect for this function. It automatically turns off sounds and call ringtones. Plus the timer will still ring when “Do not Disturb” is turned on.

I know someone who uses this function when focusing on work tasks who, at the same time, sets their phone timer for planned breaks.

During her breaks, she checks her phone for any missed emails, notifications and calls. In this way, she stays in control of when she handles information rather than the other way around.

Another idea that many find useful deals with group texts and all the replies they generate. Phones have a function that allows you to turn off notifications for specific individuals or group texts.

Once a group text comes in with the information you need, it’s easy to turn off notifications for that specific group, so you are not distracted by all the replies that simply verify that all group members have read the text.

The more we find ways to control the numerous calls, apps, texts and emails we need to answer, rather than allowing them to control us, the more efficient we can truly be with our time.

Yes, there is a chance you may miss something from time to time, but the benefit of peace of mind and focus you get back will more than make up for it.