Pomodoro and Focus on macOS: Silence Notifications

macOS silences notifications with Focus. Turn it on from Control Center before each pomodoro, or automatically: two shortcuts with the Set Focus action turn the mode on and off, and the Pomodoro app runs them itself when a pomodoro starts and ends.

Notifications break more pomodoros than anything else: a banner in the corner of the screen, a message sound, a red dot on an icon. You don’t have to remember them every half hour — the timer can take care of it.

What Focus is

Focus modes — Do Not Disturb, Work, Sleep and so on — decide which notifications reach you. In each mode you can allow specific people and apps — calls from family, say — while everything else waits in Notification Center.

Modes are set up in System Settings → Focus. For pomodoros it’s handy to create a separate mode, say “Pomodoro”, or to use the built-in Do Not Disturb. Modes sync across devices signed in to the same Apple Account, so your iPhone goes quiet too — if that sync is on for you. How to build a mode for your working day — who gets through, when it turns on, which filters to add — is covered in Focus on Mac.

By hand

The simplest way is to turn the mode on from Control Center in the menu bar before a pomodoro and off on the break. It works, but it’s two extra actions every half hour to remember, and sooner or later the mode stays on all day or doesn’t come on at all.

Automatically: two shortcuts

macOS has no public way for third-party apps to turn Focus modes on and off. But there’s the Shortcuts app, and in it the Set Focus action. Shortcuts can be run from other programs, and that’s what the automation is built on.

You’ll need two shortcuts: one turns the mode on, the other turns it off.

1. Open Shortcuts and create a new shortcut.
2. Add the Set Focus action.
3. Choose the mode (say, “Pomodoro” or Do Not Disturb) and “Turn On”.
4. Give the shortcut a clear name, like “Pomodoro — Focus on”.
5. Create a second shortcut the same way but with “Turn Off”, like “Pomodoro — Focus off”.

Check both: run the first — the mode’s icon should appear in the menu bar; run the second — it should disappear.

Connect it to the timer

In Pomodoro, open Settings → Focus Mode, turn on “Turn on a Focus mode during focus sessions” and pick both shortcuts from the list. From then on the app runs the first one when a pomodoro starts and the second one when it ends or you stop it. It only turns the mode off after turning it on itself: if no pomodoro was running, a mode you switched on by hand is left alone.

If a shortcut fails — say, it was renamed — the app tells you in the same settings.

What else helps

• Allow only those who truly can’t wait — family, on-call calls. Every allowed app is a hole in the silence.
• Don’t leave the mode on all day. The point is that on the break you see what piled up and reply. Then 25 minutes of silence isn’t scary: people know an answer is coming soon.

The next part is for when twenty-five minutes isn’t enough: where the 52/17 and 90-minute rules come from and how to move to a longer rhythm — longer rhythms without the myths.