While there are plenty of ways to limit notifications on our digital devices and avoid distraction overload, there’s nothing inherently wrong with these alerts. They just need to be well managed and kept in their place.

Keeping notifications useful and timely can help you get more done in the day, not less, and Windows 11 comes with built-in tools for setting up custom notifications that run on a schedule you specify.

You can use these scheduled notifications however you want. Maybe you need reminders to take breaks, or you want to make sure you devote specific blocks of time to certain projects, or you need alerts for when it’s time to go and pick the kids up.

However you want to use these custom notifications, here’s how to set them up—plus some extra apps that can help too.

Custom Notifications in Windows 11

Task Scheduler gives you a clean, simple way of creating alerts.Screenshot: David Nield

If you want to set up custom notifications in Windows 11 without turning to an app, the Task Scheduler is the utility you want. Type “task scheduler” into the search box on the taskbar or the Start menu, then select it when it appears.

Open the Action menu, choose Create Basic Task, and then give it a suitable name and description so you can identify it later. Click Next, and you can set the frequency of the notification: Your options are Daily, Weekly, Monthly, One time, When the computer starts, When I log on, and When a specific event is logged, so there’s a lot of flexibility.

Click Next again, and if you’ve chosen a recurring task then you can set exactly when it recurs—4 pm every afternoon, for example. Click Next, then choose Start a program, and select Next again. This opens up the dialog box screen for composing your notification.

In the Program/script field, you need to enter “msg,” and in the Add arguments (optional) field, you put your actual notification text: “Reminder: get up and do some stretching” or whatever it happens to be. With another click on Next you can review your notification, and then choose Finish to confirm.

Your notification is created, and will pop up at the specified time, whether or not Task Scheduler is open. If you ever need to edit or delete the task, you can head back to Task Scheduler to find it—it’ll be listed under the Task Scheduler Library heading, and you can right-click on the task to make changes.

Setting Notifications Through Apps

You’re also able to set reminders through the built-in Clock app.Screenshot: David Nield

The appeal of the Task Scheduler is that it’s built right into the Windows operating system, so you don’t need any other apps running to get your notifications, but there are ways to do this with apps as well. The Microsoft Clock app comes preinstalled with Windows, for example, and lets you set custom alarms.