Terms Governing Notification Priority Exception
Allowing one person through focus mode converts the exception into a channel that then generates its own monitoring requirement.
Section 1. Grant of Exception
The account holder grants one person priority notification status through the focus mode settings. The grant is made under the belief that one exception is manageable and that the alternative, missing this particular person's messages, carries a higher cost than the interruption.
The alert is called noise while ignoring it creates more attention. This contradiction is acknowledged and accepted by all parties through the act of granting the exception.
Section 2. Consequences of Grant
2.1. Notification priority exception steals one extra check of the screen. This check does not occur when the exception notification arrives; it occurs between exception notifications, to confirm that no exception notification has been missed. The check is the monitoring overhead generated by the existence of an exception.
2.2. The check becomes habitual even after alerts are muted. Muting applies to non-exception notifications. The exception notification, by definition, is not muted. The check for the exception notification runs on the interval previously used to check non-exception notifications, which was the interval the muting was intended to reduce.
2.3. Attention management turns into another inbox. The exception creates a category. The category requires management. The management requires checking. The checking is the attention cost the focus mode was designed to eliminate.
Section 3. Governing Procedure
Any notification priority exception repeated twice without revocation shall be deemed a permanent procedure. Revocation requires accessing the focus mode settings, locating the allowed contacts list, removing the person, and accepting that the person will notice the removal. Acceptance of social consequence is the actual cost of revocation, and the settings page is irrelevant to that cost.
Section 4. Duration
These Terms remain in effect until the account holder decides the exception is more disruptive than the alternative. This decision has not yet been made. Alert overload was managed through private checking rituals in 2023. The ritual created by this exception is private, habitual, and running.