What’s a sensible way to manage endless phone notifications without missing important stuff?

I treat notifications with a whitelist and batching approach. Set up DND or Focus schedules for Work, Personal, and Sleep with only family, boss, calendar, and 2FA allowed, and enable repeat callers to break through. Everything else either delivers silently or goes to a summary so the lock screen stays calm while truly urgent stuff still pings. I also mute group chats by default, use mentions only in work chat, and give VIP contacts a distinct tone so I can ignore everything else on autopilot.

On iOS, go to Settings then Focus and create Work and Personal, tap Allowed People and Allowed Apps to whitelist, turn on Time Sensitive and Repeated Calls, and add schedules. Sleep Focus lives under Health then Sleep. Then go to Settings then Notifications then Scheduled Summary, pick noisy apps for the summary, and set two or three delivery times. For Mail, make a VIP list in the Mail app and in Settings then Mail then Notifications choose VIP Only, and for Messages or WhatsApp mute group threads or set them to Deliver Quietly from the thread info. On Android, open Settings then Notifications then Do Not Disturb, set People to allow calls and messages from starred contacts, enable Repeat callers, and add work and sleep schedules. Star your key contacts in the Contacts app, then per app go to Settings then Apps then the app then Notifications to turn off unneeded channels or set them to Silent, or long press a notification to demote that channel. Use the Gmail app settings to set Inbox notifications to High priority only, and use Digital Wellbeing Focus mode or the Work profile toggle to pause social apps during work hours.

Already answered in the FAQ. Use Do Not Disturb or Focus with an allowlist for contacts and critical apps, mute the rest. Locking as a duplicate.

You won't win, just stop losing. Whitelist family, boss, and the two apps that pay rent, put everything else on silent or summary, and kill badges. Let calls from favorites or repeat callers break through and do a nightly sweep for stray permissions.

Sick of the noise, use Focus with only starred contacts and pager.