Use ThreadPatrol to automate thread enforcement, which keeps channel noise down and makes those selective notifications actually meaningful: https://thread-patrol.com

You can limit many things such us:

Number of notifications per day, Notifications on given hours, nighttime, work time etc, Notifications by application(!), Number of minutes/hours allowed per application before it goes into blocked state till the next day, break or end of work, Priority of notifications, Daily summary of notifications etc etc.

It helped me to cut down mobile screen time from like to 40m.

PS2 : Install Brave browser - it blocks all ads, popups and cookie questions forever. AND it let's you play youtube in the background

I don't have twitter, facebook, or any of the other apps that came by default. If I need those, I fire up chrome and use the web interface.

One exception is Discord, for contacting my child, but it doesn't start by default, and all the notifications are off for it as well.

Only texts and actual phone calls alert me.

Generally these days, the best solution is one that doesn't involve computers and big tech.

* SMS (and WhatsApp) for direct communications (disabled for an hour or two when seeking flow).

* Phone calls from family and close friends (filter disabled for a few hours when expecting an important call from elsewhere)

* Mentions and DMs on Slack (work hours only)

* Calendar

* Occasional temporary exceptions (Airbnb and airline apps during travel and a few days before/after; Taskrabbit the day before and day of a task; food delivery when expecting one, etc.)

Everything else I try to be notified of through email, which is easier to manage on a pull rather than push basis. I DO NOT allow email notifications. That’s begging for a deluge.

The default when an app or site asks to send me push notifications is a hard NO.

This volume of notifications is very manageable.

As for OP: read up on alert fatigue; if a notification isn't directly actionable, you shouldn't even see it!

The pull model for information is more durable for humans than the push model. Try RSS for news/blogs, take some time (preferably offline) each week to prepare for the important events in the upcoming week(s), write them down on something you pass by every day (such as a whiteboard near your front door).

Ask yourself what it is you're actually doing / attending to / accomplishing, with regard to whatever notification you happen to see. Then identify similar ones; group them together; and work on that group at repeated intervals. It should feel like boring maintenance work — because the goal is to make work predictable in order to predictably achieve the outcomes you desire (and then to automate the work, if you want, to free up your time). This also helps to identify low-value types of activities and then deprioritize or eliminate them.

By way of your example, I want to take certain actions regarding special days involving people who are important to me (birthdays, holidays, anniversaries …). So periodically I attend to that because it's important. (Maybe that means I plan things out every week, or every month — up to you. And then the planned tasks — calling my buddy, shopping for gifts, writing and mailing cards — go on the calendar as planned work.) It's during that work period that I see triggers / upcoming items related to that group of items. Why would I want notifications or other interruptions about them any other time? Answer: only for things that are true emergencies. Maybe you should have a yearly repeating 15-minute calendar entry to call your friend on their birthday. (You are working from your calendar, right?)

The other tip I can offer is to do yesterday's incoming work today, and today's incoming work tomorrow. This lets you strategically plan how you will handle all of today's work instead of getting interrupted by it today and bouncing around trying to deal with it. Moreover, very few things need to be done immediately; many problems solve themselves with time; and sleeping on things can shift a large chunk of the time-consuming processing involved with it to your subconscious mind. (Furthermore, the habit of planning your work in advance and addressing it methodically is going to drastically reduce the number of true emergencies and even typical interruptions that you'll feel the need to deal with. It's a virtuous cycle.)

I'll leave you with the notions that practically everything is unimportant when you consider its place in the incalculable vastness of the universe; you never get your time back; and your health is of paramount importance.

P.S.: I somehow missed that you had the birthday on your calendar. This tells me that either you're not working from your calendar (big problem) or else you added the birthday as an all-day event instead of an appointment ("I will call my friend on their birthday every year at 12 PM and catch up for 15 minutes").