HeyDockA study of 20 teams published in Harvard Business Review found people toggled between apps and websites about 1,200 times a day, and that getting reoriented after those switches cost just under four hours a week (HBR, 2022).
Some switching is the work. A lot of it isn’t. Here are five ways to cut the second kind on a Mac.
1. Decide what “this hour” is for
Most drift starts because the screen offers everything at once. Before you start, name the task and the two or three apps it needs. Close or hide the rest — ⌥⌘H hides every app but the one in front.
2. Batch notifications instead of answering them
Each banner is an invitation to switch. Turn banners off for chat and mail during focused work and check them at set times. macOS Focus can silence notifications except from people and apps you choose (Apple: Set up a Focus on Mac).
3. Put a pause in front of your usual escapes
Hard blockers work until the moment you need the blocked thing, and then you turn them off. A short pause works better for many people: long enough to notice you’re drifting, short enough not to get in the way of real work.
4. Leave yourself a note when you stop
The cost of a switch is mostly getting back in. Before you leave a task, write one line: what you were about to do next. It turns “where was I?” into a ten-second job.
5. Make the dock match the task
The Dock is the menu you look at all day. If it shows Slack, Mail and Music while you’re writing, it’s offering three detours.
How HeyDock does this
HeyDock is our app, so weigh this accordingly. It turns those habits into the dock itself: each mode shows only its own apps, held notifications wait until you switch, the Stay-or-switch gate adds the pause during Focus, and Where was I writes the note for you.