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Hey! It’s Jack.
In this edition of On The Pulse:
How Do Not Disturb can supercharge your productivity
Buttons are making a comeback — touchscreens are out!
Why you’ll have to pay $30 for Windows 10
Before we get into it, I’d appreciate you letting us know what device you use for work. This will help us further tailor our content to you:
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🔍 FAVOURITE FINDS
📰 News
Apple are acquiring Pixelmator, one of Adobe Photoshop’s biggest competitors. It’ll be interesting to see what Apple does with Pixelmator’s apps — perhaps they’ll be free on iPhone, iPads, and Macs?
🧐 Interesting
We’ve held the opinion that AI could be a problem — dangerous, even — for a long time. In a disconcerting tweet (or “X”, who knows?!) Perplexity AI’s CEO Aravind Srinivas offered his company’s services as a replacement for striking New York Times staff; a dangerous example of how AI may impact workers’ rights.
Touchscreens are giving way to traditional controls in many devices. Even Apple’s iPhone 16 added new physical buttons, responding to a growing demand for tactile feedback and simpler interfaces. According to expert Rachel Plotnick, these physical controls offer sensory benefits and ease of use, especially in contexts where screen fatigue and safety are concerns.
With Windows 10 support ending in 2025, Microsoft will charge consumers $30 for a single year of critical security updates—no features, just patches. Microsoft’s push for Windows 11 upgrades leaves millions with older PCs that don’t meet its stricter requirements, forcing users to choose: pay for temporary security or upgrade their hardware. Should Microsoft really be charging for essential security updates?
✨ DEEP DIVE
🧘♂️ Enhance your focus with DND
For the best part of a year, we’ve been writing content to help you increase your productivity. Until now, we’ve passed over a simple but incredible feature: Do Not Disturb.
It takes an average of 23 minutes to refocus on a task after being interrupted — whether that be an email, text on your phone, or the incessant push notifications we all endure.
With Focus Assist (on Windows) and Focus (on MacOS), you can obscure these interruptions.
First, we’ll look at how you can turn on these features on an ad hoc basis, then we’ll dive into some tips like using automatic rules and customising your priority notifications.
How to set up Focus Assist (Windows) and Focus (MacOS)
To turn on Focus Assist within Windows:
Press the Windows key or click into search box in the bottom left
Type “Focus”, then select Focus assist
Select Priority only or Alarms only to activate
With Priority only, you’ll only see notifications from people or apps you’ve added to the priority list
With Alarms only, all notifications are hidden other than alarms
To turn on Focus within MacOS:
Click the Control Center icon (to the left of the date & time in the top right of the screen)
Click the moon icon in the Focus widget
You now know how to enable Focus modes across both platforms, but you can make life much easier with a bit of automation and customisation.
Automate and customise Focus Assist (Windows)
To make the most of Focus Assist, you’ll want to update your priority list — add apps and people you want to receive notifications from while Focus Assist is enabled — and make use of automatic rules.
You can use automatic rules to:
Automatically enable Focus Assist during certain hours
Activate Focus Assist anytime you’re doing certain things like gaming or using an app in full-screen mode
Show you a summary of notifications you missed when Focus Assist is disabled whether you do this manually or with automatic rules
If you’re on Mac, here’s how you can make the most of Focus within MacOS.
Automate and customise Focus (MacOS)
Similar to Focus Assist, you can customise Focus to your heart’s content.
The feature is significantly more fleshed out on MacOS, with more customisation including additional focus modes for different situations. You can:
Allow notifications from certain people or apps
Automatically enable Focus during certain hours or in certain places
Customise how certain apps work when Focus is enabled
Sync your Focus settings to your iPhone or iPad
Create additional Focus modes for different uses (such as gaming, working, or reading) so you can adapt how Focus works depending on the situation
You can customise all of this by accessing Focus via the Control Center, as before, or using the shortcut command + spacebar to open Spotlight Search and typing “Focus”.
✅ WRAPPING UP!
If you’d like to read more about the impact of notifications on our productivity, check out this article from Harvard Independent.
That’s all for this edition of On The Pulse.
Thanks for reading and see you soon! 👋