Notification Cost Calculator
Your phone already counts your notifications. Type that number, add how long it takes you to get back into what you were doing, and see how many interruptions a year that is and how much focus time is at stake.
- Free
- No sign-up
- Runs in your browser
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Result
Type the notifications per day from your phone report.
At stake does not mean lost. It is the time in which, by your own numbers, part of your attention is still on the interruption.
How the numbers are made
Your count, from your phone
Notifications per day is the only number the calculator cannot do without, and it is yours: phones report it in their screen time or digital wellbeing screen.
The share that interrupts: an assumption
It starts at 100%, which counts every notification as an interruption. That is an upper bound, not a statistic. Lower it to your own estimate.
Refocus time: yours, not a study
The field starts empty. Two field studies are often quoted. Mark, Gonzalez and Harris (2005) observed 24 office workers: interrupted work resumed the same day was resumed after 25 min 26 s on average. Iqbal and Horvitz (2007) logged 27 computer users for two weeks: after an email or chat alert, people spent about 10 minutes on the switch and another 10 to 15 minutes before returning to focused work on the task. Both are about work at a desk.
Interruptions are not only a loss
Mark, Gudith and Klocke (2008) found in an experiment that people completed interrupted tasks in less time, with no difference in quality, at the price of more stress, frustration and effort. That is one reason this page says "at stake" and not "lost".
The cap
Minutes at stake per day never pass your waking minutes. If your numbers go over, the result is flagged and stops there.
Formulas
- Interruptions per day
- notifications per day × share that pulls you away
- Interruptions per year
- interruptions per day × 365
- One every
- hours awake × 60 ÷ interruptions per day
- Minutes at stake per day
- interruptions per day × refocus minutes, never more than hours awake × 60
- Focus hours at stake per year
- minutes at stake per day × 365 ÷ 60
- Waking days per year
- focus hours at stake per year ÷ hours awake
Studies mentioned (opened and read on October 11, 2026)
None of them measured phone notifications. They are here so you can see what the quoted numbers really describe.
Attention you choose to give
On VISU, verified actions such as completing a mission can earn VISU Credits. Rewards depend on the offer, your eligibility and a verified action. For the other side of the picture, the Attention Tax Calculator turns your daily screen time into a yearly receipt.
Open the Attention Tax CalculatorExplore the Attention EconomyHow to use it
- Open the screen time report of your phone and find the daily notification count. On iPhone: Settings, Screen Time, See All App & Website Activity, then the Notifications section. On Android: Settings, Digital Wellbeing & parental controls.
- Type that number. Use a typical day or the daily average of the week.
- Type how many minutes it takes you to get back into what you were doing. The field is empty because the honest number is yours: time it once or twice.
- Adjust the two assumptions if you want: the share of notifications that really interrupts you and the hours you are awake.
- Download the card, or see what half as many notifications would give back.
Examples
80 notifications, half of them interrupt, 1 minute each
80 × 50% = 40 interruptions a day, one every 24 waking minutes, 14,600 a year. At 1 minute to refocus: 40 minutes a day, about 243 hours a year, or 15.2 waking days. Half as many would give about 122 hours back.
150 notifications, all of them count, 2 minutes each
150 interruptions a day, one every 6.4 waking minutes, 54,750 a year. At 2 minutes each: 300 minutes a day, 1,825 hours a year, about 114 waking days of 16 hours.
Why a long refocus time breaks the maths
200 notifications at 10 minutes each would be 2,000 minutes a day, more than the 960 minutes of a 16-hour day. The calculator stops at the waking day and tells you the numbers overlap.
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Questions
Where do I find how many notifications I get per day?
On iPhone: Settings, Screen Time, See All App & Website Activity, and scroll to Notifications. On Android: Settings, Digital Wellbeing & parental controls, where the dashboard shows the notifications received. Names change a little between phone makers and versions.
Why is the refocus time empty?
Because we found no primary study that measured it for phone notifications. The numbers people quote come from studies of office work at a computer. Rather than borrow one, the page asks for yours and shows what those studies really measured.
Is it true that every interruption costs 23 minutes?
That figure is usually traced to a 2005 study of 24 office workers, where interrupted work that was resumed the same day was resumed after 25 minutes 26 seconds on average, with other tasks in between. It describes switching between work tasks, not glancing at a phone, so this calculator does not apply it to notifications.
What does "at stake" mean?
It is interruptions per day times your refocus time, capped at your waking hours. It is not a measurement of lost time: you may refocus faster on some days, and some notifications are exactly what you were waiting for.
Why does the result stop growing?
Refocus time only adds up while there is room between interruptions. When the sum passes your waking day the calculator shows a warning instead of a number larger than the day itself.
Is anything I type saved or sent?
No. The maths runs in your browser. The numbers are not stored, not sent and not placed in the page address. The card image is created on your device.