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Know where to go to toggle on Focus Assist so you only receive the most important notifications.

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Quick reference

Use Focus Assist

Use Focus Assist to minimize distractions. 

When to use

We can use Focus Assist to control notifications and minimize distractions during certain times. 

Instructions

Constant notifications can be distracting. If we are trying to focus on an important piece of work but our eye is glancing across at each notification that comes in, we could lose focus easily. We can manage this better using the new Focus Assist feature in Windows 11. 

Focus Assist is like Do Not Disturb in Microsoft Teams. Do Not Disturb blocks all notifications for a specific period of time allowing us to focus on our work with no distractions. 

Turn on Focus Assist

  • In the taskbar, click on the three icons next to the date and time. 
  • From Quick Settings, click the Pencil to Edit. 
  • Click Add. 
  • Select Focus Assist. 
  • Click Done. 

Focus Assist Modes

Focus Assist has three modes: Off, Priority Mode, and Alarms Only. We cycle through the modes by clicking on the Focus Assist button in Quick Settings. 

Off - Turns off Focus Assist. 

Priority Mode - Lets us build a list of priority apps to receive notifications from. 

Alarms Only - Hides all notifications except for alarms. 

Neither Priority Mode nor Alarms Only blocks all notifications entirely. To do that, we need to turn Notifications off in Settings. 

Customize Priority List

If we choose the Priority Mode, we can create a list of applications and only receive notifications from the apps in the list. 

  • Go to Quick Settings. 
  • Right-click on Focus Assist. 
  • Click Go to Settings. 
  • Ensure Priority only is selected. 
  • Click Customize priority list. 

Here we can select what notifications we want to receive when using this mode. We can choose which contacts we want to receive notifications from e.g. we might want to make sure we don't miss any notifications from our manager. 

  • Click +Add contacts. 
  • Search for a contact. 
  • Click the tick. 

In the Apps section, we can choose which apps to receive notifications from when using Priority Mode. 

  • Click +Add an app. 
  • Choose an app from the list. 
  • To remove an app, click on the app and select Remove. 

Automatic Rules

We have other options for customizing our notifications in the Automatic rules section. 

We can choose to receive notifications only between certain times. The Focus Assist mode we have selected will still be active and in the case of Priority only, will only display notifications from people and apps on the priority list between the times specified. 

We can apply a Focus Assist Mode when we are duplicating our display. For example, if we are in a Teams meeting and are sharing our desktop with meeting participants, we may not want notifications to be popping up constantly. The same thing applies when we are playing a game. 

We can go through these Automatic rules and customize them according to our needs.

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  • 00:04 We can use the new focus assist feature in Windows 11 to help us manage
  • 00:08 our notifications.
  • 00:10 Because let's face it, constant notifications popping up and
  • 00:14 coming into our system can be distracting.
  • 00:16 If we're trying to focus on a piece of work that our eyes keep glancing across
  • 00:21 every time we get a banner notification, it means we can easily lose focus.
  • 00:26 But now in Windows 11, we have a new feature called focus assist,
  • 00:30 which will help us minimize those distractions.
  • 00:33 So, let's check it out and see how it works.
  • 00:36 Now focus assist is one of those little buttons that you can find in the quick
  • 00:40 settings panel.
  • 00:41 We did briefly mention it earlier on,
  • 00:43 but we didn't really take a look at the details.
  • 00:46 So let's pull up the quick settings pane by clicking down in the taskbar on our
  • 00:51 icons in the bottom right hand corner.
  • 00:53 Now simply by looking at the quick settings panel,
  • 00:56 it's not particularly obvious which one of these is Focus assist, but
  • 01:00 it is actually this one here that currently says Alarms only.
  • 01:03 Now yours might say something different because there are three modes that we can
  • 01:08 use for focus assist, and we switch between the modes by clicking on the icon.
  • 01:13 So if I click once, it's going to change to Focus assist, if I click again,
  • 01:17 Priority only, click again, Alarms only, and then back to Focus assist.
  • 01:22 So if it doesn't say Focus assist, it says something else,
  • 01:26 just be aware that that is the correct button.
  • 01:29 If you can't see this at all, remember, you can edit the quick settings panel,
  • 01:33 click on Add, and you're going to find it in this list.
  • 01:37 So what is Focus assist and what are these different modes?
  • 01:40 Well Focus assist acts like a do not disturb button for notifications.
  • 01:45 It blocks certain notifications for specific periods of time,
  • 01:49 allowing us to focus on our work with no distractions, and
  • 01:53 that is why we have three different modes.
  • 01:56 So, let's click once to switch to the Priority only mode.
  • 02:01 What exactly does this mean?
  • 02:02 Well Priority only lets us build our own customized list of applications
  • 02:07 that we want to receive notifications from.
  • 02:10 So maybe I'm only interested in notifications from my mail and calendar,
  • 02:15 I could put both of those apps onto my priority list and
  • 02:18 it will block all notifications from any other app.
  • 02:22 So if we right click whilst we're in Priority only and
  • 02:26 go to Settings, it's going to jump us to the Focus assist window.
  • 02:31 You can see at the top here, Priority only is already selected, and
  • 02:36 I can customize the priority list.
  • 02:39 So in here I can define what I'm interested in receiving notifications for.
  • 02:43 So it is going to show me incoming calls, so
  • 02:46 maybe incoming calls from Microsoft Teams, and also reminders regardless of the app.
  • 02:52 If you don't want either of these to show, you can deselect both of these boxes.
  • 02:57 I can also choose specific contacts to receive messages from.
  • 03:01 So if I want to block all notifications, emails from all of my work colleagues,
  • 03:06 and only want to make sure that I'm notified if my manager emails me,
  • 03:10 I could choose add contacts and then select them from my contacts list.
  • 03:15 And then finally at the bottom,
  • 03:17 we can choose the apps that we want to receive notifications for.
  • 03:20 So I can click on Add an app, and then I can choose Mail to add that into the list.
  • 03:26 And if I want to remove any of these apps from the list I can simply click on them
  • 03:30 and choose the Remove button.
  • 03:32 So that is how you can customize the priority only mode in Focus assist.
  • 03:38 Let's jump back into our quick settings.
  • 03:41 If we click on this button again, it's going to go to Alarms only, and
  • 03:46 this will basically block all notifications apart from alarms.
  • 03:51 So once again if we right-click and go to Settings, it switched to Alarms only,
  • 03:56 and you can see here it's going to hide all notifications except for alarms.
  • 04:01 Now what you'll also notice underneath, is that we do have some automatic rules,
  • 04:06 and we can see the mode that they apply to.
  • 04:09 For example, I could set up my system so that I only receive
  • 04:13 notifications between certain times and only from my priority list.
  • 04:18 So I could turn this on, click on it, and customize.
  • 04:23 So maybe I only want to see notifications from the people
  • 04:28 on my priority list between, let's say 1PM
  • 04:34 And 4PM, and that is going to repeat daily.
  • 04:38 Let's go back to Focus assist, because we have other options in here as well.
  • 04:42 So this one is quite good when I'm duplicating my display, if for example,
  • 04:46 you're in a Teams Meeting and you're sharing your desktop with everybody in
  • 04:50 that meeting, you don't necessarily want to have lots and lots of different popup
  • 04:54 notifications coming in, because everybody is going to be able to see those.
  • 04:58 So this counts as when you're duplicating your display,
  • 05:02 when other people can see it, so this is set by default, two alarms only.
  • 05:07 But of course, we can click on this and we can customize it.
  • 05:11 So I have it turned on, but I could change the Focus level to Priority only,
  • 05:15 which again, is going to cut down on the amount of alarms that are coming in,
  • 05:20 because it just relates to people or apps that are on my priority list.
  • 05:24 So it's definitely worth having a look through here and
  • 05:26 choosing the relevant option.
  • 05:28 Notice that aside from Priority and Alarms only,
  • 05:31 we can turn Focus assist off completely.
  • 05:34 So if I choose Off, it just means that all of my notifications are going to come in,
  • 05:39 depending on what I've set for those individual apps.

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