In addition to the great tips here, I say, turn off as many notifications as possible. The only thing I get immediately are calls, SMS, and Slack+work email during office hours. Like many others said, if it’s important, people will call me. Did I miss the message my brother sent the family group chat about his wife being pregnant? Yes, for two days, until he called me. I still found out months before the due date, and my family had a laugh about it. I feel like a fear of missing out is also a big part of these issues, and I think we should try to tell ourselves more that it’s okay, important even, to not keep up with everything all the time.

I also thought you could create an account without your phone number nowadays, but since I already have a phone-connected account, I haven’t tested. Only thing I found in their blog was this: https://signal.org/blog/phone-number-privacy-usernames/

Until now, someone needed to know your phone number to reach you on Signal. Now, you can connect on Signal without needing to hand out your phone number. (You will still need a phone number to register for Signal.) This is where usernames come in.

There are some newer post about other changes, but I haven’t checked them in detail.

Ooh, I didn’t think of that, will try later! Thanks!