I haven't gone that far because unwanted phone calls aren't a problem for me, so I've just turned off most notifications and it's been great. Email is a much better tool when you don't have notifications on, I'm much better at paying bills because I check a couple of times a day when it's also convenient to pay them, with notifications on I'll swipe away and forget. Same goes for things I actually want to read, I'll read them properly now instead of a quick skim at an inopportune time.

Google has been awful at respecting my decision though, they'll keep enabling various news notifications and the have a very different opinion on "breaking news" than I do, I think the last one was for some Hollywood awards show. If there really is some breaking news I need to be interrupted for then the government emergency SMS service should suffice.

I first read this on HN: app notifications should really be called app interruptions. It really changes how things should be viewed.