If you're anything like me, your phone buzzes all day long, alerting you to completely useless things like app updates, Facebook likes, and chain emails from your grandma. Here's how to keep your phone from bugging you all day without turning your notifications off entirely—but still staying on top of what matters.

We've all experienced phantom vibrations before—that feeling that your phone is ringing when it really isn't. Psychology professor Larry Rosen says this could be a symptom of tech anxiety, and it's probably true—we've gotten to the point where every time our phone buzzes, we feel like we need to pull it out to see what just happened, even if we're so often disappointed by email newsletters, Facebook likes, and other notifications that aren't "need to know". This is annoying, but there's no need to turn off notifications altogether—all it takes is a little pruning.

The process is a little different depending on whether you have an iPhone or Android device, but there's a lot you can do on both platforms to keep annoyances to a minimum while staying on top of what's really important. It takes a bit of setup, but you'll be much happier for it in the end. Here's what you need to do.

Step One: Split Up Apps By Importance

Before we get into the settings, you should take a look at the apps on your device and decide which ones you really want to stay on top of. Generally, I split notifications up into three categories:

• Important: These are the apps I always want to buzz me when something happens. Vibrations, sounds, badges on the home screen, the whole nine yards. SMS usually falls into this category, though it can also include personal or work email, calendar alerts, and to-do apps (like the iPhone's Reminders app).
• Unimportant: These are notifications that I like to have, but I don't want bugging me during the day. If I go to check my phone during a free moment, I like to see them, but I don't want them to vibrate or make noise. This often includes things like Facebook, Twitter, and IMs.
• Useless: These are apps for whom I want to just turn off notifications entirely. If I want to see what they have to tell me, I'll open them up. I don't want them wasting space in my notification center, let alone vibrating in my pocket. That means you, podcast managers, games, and other random apps.

You may find that you have other categories or sub-categories, but this is a good skeleton on which to base your system. Next, it's time to delve into the settings.

Step Two: Tweak Your Notification Settings for Each App

With those categories in mind, we'll now come up with a system for which notification settings we'll apply to each category of apps. Here's how to do it on both the iPhone and Android.

On the iPhone

Head into Settings > Notifications and go into each app one by one. Here are the settings you'll probably want to use for each category:

• Important: I turn everything on for important notifications. The Notification Center, badge app icons, sounds, and the lock screen. I usually stick with banners instead of alerts, but you can tweak this based on your own preferences.
• Unimportant: Unimportant notifications should probably use the same settings as important notifications, minus sounds. That means these notifications will show banners when you're using your phone, they'll show up in the notification center and on the lock screen, and they'll show badges, they just won't bug you with sounds or vibrations when you get notifications.
• Useless: For these, you can go ahead and just turn everything off and set the Alert Style to "none". That should keep the app from ever bugging you or taking up notification space.

Note that the "Sounds" slider in the notification center means sounds and vibrations—there's no way to separate your preferences for each in iOS. If you have sound notifications, you'll get vibrations as long as you have vibrations turned on in Settings > Sounds.

On Android

Android apps manage their notification settings separately from one another. So, to tweak the notification settings for a certain app, open it up, press the menu button, and go to Settings. Search around for the notification settings and tweak them from there (some of them are hard to find, too—Gmail's is hidden in each individual account's settings under "Labels to Notify", for example). Here are some guidelines for what you'll want to set:

• Important: I turn everything on for important notifications. I want them to show up in my status bar, make a sound, and vibrate. These are important notifications and I want to know about them as they happen.
• Unimportant: For these apps, I'll often turn notifications on, but turn vibrations off. I'll leave sounds on, usually, unless I get a ton of notifications from the app (like Twitter), in which case I'll turn sounds off as well.
• Useless: For these, you can go ahead and just turn notifications off entirely.

Note that every app has different notification settings—some will have more than described above, and some will have less. You just have to make do with what you have. For example, if you don't have the option to keep sounds on and vibration off, you're probably better off turning them both off for unimportant notifications.

Step Three: Give Each App Its Own Notification Sound

If you really want to make your life easy, you can give each app its own notification tone. That way, when you get a notification, you know exactly what kind of alert it is without even looking at your device. Here's how to do it.

On iPhone

You can tweak the built-in apps' sounds right from Settings > Sounds. This includes new SMS messages, new voicemails, new emails, tweets, calendar alerts, and reminder alerts. Just tap on a category and choose from one of iOS' many tones. You can also create your own tones using iTunes and sync them to your device—as long as they're shorter than 15 seconds, you can assign them to any of these categories as well.

Unfortunately, you need to do a little more work to assign custom tones to non-Apple apps. We've discussed how to do this before, so we won't go into it here—just know that it's a little more work, and since a lot of apps come with their own separate tones anyway, it isn't always worth the trouble. For third party apps that just use Apple's default tri-tone sound, the only way to customize them is to jailbreak your phone and use an app like previously mentioned PushTone, which is a great way to customize your sounds all from one place.

On Android

To assign a notification tone, go back to the notification settings of each app. Within the notification settings, you can tap "Ringtone" (or something similar) to assign a tone from Android's vast library. Don't forget you can also add custom tones to Android by copying short MP3 files to the /media/audio/notifications folder on your SD card (if it isn't there, you can create it). After copying them there, they should show up in the list of possible tones in each app's notification settings.

Other Tweaks to Further Customize Your Notifications

If you really want to go the extra mile, there are a few extra tweaks you can make to make your notifications as unobtrusive to your life as possible. Here are some cool tricks for iOS and Android.

On the iPhone

The iPhone has a cool feature that lets you use custom vibration patterns for each of your contacts, so that when they call, you can tell who it is without even taking your phone out of your pocket. To set them up, just go to Settings > General > Accessibility > Custom Vibrations. Turn it on, and then go into the Contacts app. By editing a contact, you can give them a vibration pattern of your choosing (or even create a new one). Sadly, this only works for calls—not SMS or other notifications—but it's still handy if you get a lot of phone calls from friends and colleagues.

If you're jailbroken, we also like this handy little tweak called Reveal, which makes your notifications scrollable on the lock screen. That way, you can see an entire notification—whether it be a text message, email summary, or something else—without having to unlock your phone. It's simple, but can often save you from having to open up your phone, wait for your inbox to load, and read the message if there's something else you'd rather have your attention on.

On Android

If you want to really get the most out of notifications on Android, you have to check out previously mentioned WhoIsIt, which lets you assign custom ringtones and vibration patterns to all of your contacts. Essentially, you can give each contact a different ringtone and vibration pattern for calls, Gmail, SMS, and MMS, which means you'll always know exactly what that notification is for without taking your phone out of your pocket. It'll definitely take awhile to set up, but once you get all of your contacts customized, you'll be completely on top of every buzz your phone makes.

Update: A lot of you are noting in the comments that WhoIsIt no longer works on many phones, in which case we recommend checking out previously mentioned ViBe. It doesn't do quite as much, but will still let you customize vibration patterns for calls and text messages.

We also like previously mentioned Notifier Pro for Android. It gives you iOS-like banner notifications across the top of your screen that are much easier to read than Android's defaults, which mean it's easier to see whether a specific notification is something you need to open up right now. You can also set it to re-send you unread notifications after a few minutes, which is great if you're the type of person that doesn't always feel your phone vibrating in your pocket (say, if you keep it in your backpack or purse).

This is just the beginning of everything you can do—we could do a whole feature on customizing just your email notifications if we wanted to—but you should find that your phone is much less annoying after putting some of these ideas in place. Got any other cool apps or tweaks for controlling your notifications? Let us know about them in the comments.

If you're anything like me, your phone buzzes all day long, alerting you to completely useless things like app updates, Facebook likes, and chain emails from your grandma. Here's how to keep your phone from bugging you all day without turning your notifications off entirely—but still staying on top of what matters.

We've all experienced phantom vibrations before—that feeling that your phone is ringing when it really isn't. Psychology professor Larry Rosen says this could be a symptom of tech anxiety, and it's probably true—we've gotten to the point where every time our phone buzzes, we feel like we need to pull it out to see what just happened, even if we're so often disappointed by email newsletters, Facebook likes, and other notifications that aren't "need to know". This is annoying, but there's no need to turn off notifications altogether—all it takes is a little pruning.

The process is a little different depending on whether you have an iPhone or Android device, but there's a lot you can do on both platforms to keep annoyances to a minimum while staying on top of what's really important. It takes a bit of setup, but you'll be much happier for it in the end. Here's what you need to do.

Step One: Split Up Apps By Importance

Before we get into the settings, you should take a look at the apps on your device and decide which ones you really want to stay on top of. Generally, I split notifications up into three categories:

• Important: These are the apps I always want to buzz me when something happens. Vibrations, sounds, badges on the home screen, the whole nine yards. SMS usually falls into this category, though it can also include personal or work email, calendar alerts, and to-do apps (like the iPhone's Reminders app).
• Unimportant: These are notifications that I like to have, but I don't want bugging me during the day. If I go to check my phone during a free moment, I like to see them, but I don't want them to vibrate or make noise. This often includes things like Facebook, Twitter, and IMs.
• Useless: These are apps for whom I want to just turn off notifications entirely. If I want to see what they have to tell me, I'll open them up. I don't want them wasting space in my notification center, let alone vibrating in my pocket. That means you, podcast managers, games, and other random apps.

You may find that you have other categories or sub-categories, but this is a good skeleton on which to base your system. Next, it's time to delve into the settings.

Step Two: Tweak Your Notification Settings for Each App

With those categories in mind, we'll now come up with a system for which notification settings we'll apply to each category of apps. Here's how to do it on both the iPhone and Android.

On the iPhone

Head into Settings > Notifications and go into each app one by one. Here are the settings you'll probably want to use for each category:

• Important: I turn everything on for important notifications. The Notification Center, badge app icons, sounds, and the lock screen. I usually stick with banners instead of alerts, but you can tweak this based on your own preferences.
• Unimportant: Unimportant notifications should probably use the same settings as important notifications, minus sounds. That means these notifications will show banners when you're using your phone, they'll show up in the notification center and on the lock screen, and they'll show badges, they just won't bug you with sounds or vibrations when you get notifications.
• Useless: For these, you can go ahead and just turn everything off and set the Alert Style to "none". That should keep the app from ever bugging you or taking up notification space.

Note that the "Sounds" slider in the notification center means sounds and vibrations—there's no way to separate your preferences for each in iOS. If you have sound notifications, you'll get vibrations as long as you have vibrations turned on in Settings > Sounds.

On Android

Android apps manage their notification settings separately from one another. So, to tweak the notification settings for a certain app, open it up, press the menu button, and go to Settings. Search around for the notification settings and tweak them from there (some of them are hard to find, too—Gmail's is hidden in each individual account's settings under "Labels to Notify", for example). Here are some guidelines for what you'll want to set:

• Important: I turn everything on for important notifications. I want them to show up in my status bar, make a sound, and vibrate. These are important notifications and I want to know about them as they happen.
• Unimportant: For these apps, I'll often turn notifications on, but turn vibrations off. I'll leave sounds on, usually, unless I get a ton of notifications from the app (like Twitter), in which case I'll turn sounds off as well.
• Useless: For these, you can go ahead and just turn notifications off entirely.

Note that every app has different notification settings—some will have more than described above, and some will have less. You just have to make do with what you have. For example, if you don't have the option to keep sounds on and vibration off, you're probably better off turning them both off for unimportant notifications.

Step Three: Give Each App Its Own Notification Sound

If you really want to make your life easy, you can give each app its own notification tone. That way, when you get a notification, you know exactly what kind of alert it is without even looking at your device. Here's how to do it.

On iPhone

You can tweak the built-in apps' sounds right from Settings > Sounds. This includes new SMS messages, new voicemails, new emails, tweets, calendar alerts, and reminder alerts. Just tap on a category and choose from one of iOS' many tones. You can also create your own tones using iTunes and sync them to your device—as long as they're shorter than 15 seconds, you can assign them to any of these categories as well.

Unfortunately, you need to do a little more work to assign custom tones to non-Apple apps. We've discussed how to do this before, so we won't go into it here—just know that it's a little more work, and since a lot of apps come with their own separate tones anyway, it isn't always worth the trouble. For third party apps that just use Apple's default tri-tone sound, the only way to customize them is to jailbreak your phone and use an app like previously mentioned PushTone, which is a great way to customize your sounds all from one place.

On Android

To assign a notification tone, go back to the notification settings of each app. Within the notification settings, you can tap "Ringtone" (or something similar) to assign a tone from Android's vast library. Don't forget you can also add custom tones to Android by copying short MP3 files to the /media/audio/notifications folder on your SD card (if it isn't there, you can create it). After copying them there, they should show up in the list of possible tones in each app's notification settings.

Other Tweaks to Further Customize Your Notifications

If you really want to go the extra mile, there are a few extra tweaks you can make to make your notifications as unobtrusive to your life as possible. Here are some cool tricks for iOS and Android.

On the iPhone

The iPhone has a cool feature that lets you use custom vibration patterns for each of your contacts, so that when they call, you can tell who it is without even taking your phone out of your pocket. To set them up, just go to Settings > General > Accessibility > Custom Vibrations. Turn it on, and then go into the Contacts app. By editing a contact, you can give them a vibration pattern of your choosing (or even create a new one). Sadly, this only works for calls—not SMS or other notifications—but it's still handy if you get a lot of phone calls from friends and colleagues.

If you're jailbroken, we also like this handy little tweak called Reveal, which makes your notifications scrollable on the lock screen. That way, you can see an entire notification—whether it be a text message, email summary, or something else—without having to unlock your phone. It's simple, but can often save you from having to open up your phone, wait for your inbox to load, and read the message if there's something else you'd rather have your attention on.

On Android

If you want to really get the most out of notifications on Android, you have to check out previously mentioned WhoIsIt, which lets you assign custom ringtones and vibration patterns to all of your contacts. Essentially, you can give each contact a different ringtone and vibration pattern for calls, Gmail, SMS, and MMS, which means you'll always know exactly what that notification is for without taking your phone out of your pocket. It'll definitely take awhile to set up, but once you get all of your contacts customized, you'll be completely on top of every buzz your phone makes.

Update: A lot of you are noting in the comments that WhoIsIt no longer works on many phones, in which case we recommend checking out previously mentioned ViBe. It doesn't do quite as much, but will still let you customize vibration patterns for calls and text messages.

We also like previously mentioned Notifier Pro for Android. It gives you iOS-like banner notifications across the top of your screen that are much easier to read than Android's defaults, which mean it's easier to see whether a specific notification is something you need to open up right now. You can also set it to re-send you unread notifications after a few minutes, which is great if you're the type of person that doesn't always feel your phone vibrating in your pocket (say, if you keep it in your backpack or purse).

This is just the beginning of everything you can do—we could do a whole feature on customizing just your email notifications if we wanted to—but you should find that your phone is much less annoying after putting some of these ideas in place. Got any other cool apps or tweaks for controlling your notifications? Let us know about them in the comments.

If you have a tablet and want to express your creativity, there are plenty of great apps you can use to pass the time doodling or to create beautiful digital art. If you have a stylus, they're even easier to use, but most of them only require a steady finger and a good imagination to make something beautiful. This week we're going to look at five of the best tablet drawing apps, based on your nominations.

Earlier in the week, we asked you which tablet drawing apps you used when you felt creative. You responded with some great nominations, and now we're back to take a look at the top five.

The poll is closed and the votes are counted! To find out who took the top prize, head over to our weekly hive five followup post to see and discuss the winner!

Sketchbook Express for iOS/Express for Android/Mobile for Android/Pro/Pro for Android (iOS: Free/$4.99, Android: Free/$1.99/$4.99)

Autodesk's Sketchbook series comes in multiple flavors for multiple platforms, and in each one of them you get a clean UI, plenty of tools to make your ideas come to life on your tablet's display even if you're using the free versions of the app, a full multi-touch interface that works best with a stylus (but doesn't require one), layers, tons of brushes, pens, and drawing tools, and the ability to undo and redo—all things you would expect from a well built drawing app. If you want more brushes or tools, you can always get more via in-app purchases. When you're finished with your masterpiece, you can save it to your gallery or photo roll or share it with the world.

Paper (iOS: Free)

Paper is iOS only, but it's made waves for its unique and beautiful approach to a drawing app. Create your notebooks based on date, theme, or whatever you want to draw, and set to work. You get some basic brushes and colors out of the gate, so it's perfect for idle doodling, but you unearth the app's real potential pretty quickly when you start playing with watercolors and the app's multiple pen and brush styles. Finally, your work is saved as you progress inside of the app, but you can always share your photos with friends on Twitter, Facebook, or Tumblr. Paper is completely free—all of the additional brushes, notebooks, features, and tools are available in the app through in-app purchases when you need them, and you can try them before you buy.

Procreate (iOS: $4.99)

Procreate earned high praise from many of you for being immensely feature rich, fast, and full of tools for the price you pay to get it. The app offers hundreds of drawing and illustration tools packed into a streamlined interface, including 16 layers to your images and the ability to control them all, a wealth of brushes and drawing tools and the ability to tweak those brushes and styles with dozens of options, 100 undo/redo strokes, auto-saving while you draw, all wrapped up in a gorgeous UI that makes being creative that much more fun. When you're all fnished, you can save your work to your gallery, or you can even export your image to Adobe Photoshop so you can take over on the desktop.

Artrage (iPhone: $1.99/iPad: $6.99)

ArtRage for iPhone and iPad do a great job at bringing the long-standing and popular ArtRage for Mac and Windows to tablet screens. The app combines a natural drawing interface with tons of brushes and other painting and drawing tools you may be accustomed to using on canvas or paper. Sure, you have a paintbrush and a pen, but you also have a palette knife, watercolor brush, and the ability to control all of those brushes while you work. Select whether you're working on canvas or paper, with watercolors, oil, or acrylic paint, even reference images to "tape" on your canvas to look at while you work or trace in pencil. Where other drawing apps walk the line between being an illustration studio combined with a causal doodling tool, Artrage very much a serious painting and drawing tool. Don't let the price tag fool you, it's feature-packed, and friendly for both beginners and experienced illustrators.

Infinite Design/Free (Android: Free/$4.99)

The only nominee in our roundup that's Android-only, Infinite Design gives you the tools you need to doodle, make handwritten notes, and draw beautiful and intricate designs on your Android device's display with ease. Infinite Design features an infinitely zooming canvas, canvas rotation, and canvas-wide effects you can apply to your artwork, and multiple brushes and drawing tools you can use to make your ideas come to life. The app allows you to draw vector graphics, tweak them using multi-touch gestures, and saves your work as you draw. When you're finished, you can export your work to your gallery as JPGs, PNGs, or SVGs so you can work with them again later. The app is fast, and works just as well for quick sketches and doodles as it does for meticulous designs and drawings. If you like Infinite Design, Infinite Painter, from the same developer, is also worth a look.

Now that you've seen the top five, it's time to vote for the all out winner.

Honorable mention this week goes out to Sketch Club (iOS: $2.99), which many of you praised for its price and online gallery full of user-submitted artwork. Based on the nominations, it's clear there aren't too many popular drawing apps for Android devices and tablets yet (or at least none with enough momentum to earn your nominations), but we're hoping that changes soon.

Have something to say about the nominees that we missed? Did your favorite not get enough nominations to be included? Remember, the top five are based on your most popular nominations from the call for contenders thread from earlier in the week. Share your thoughts in the comments below.

The Hive Five is based on reader nominations. As with most Hive Five posts, if your favorite was left out, it's not because we hate it—it's because it didn't get the nominations required in the call for contenders post to make the top five. We understand it's a bit of a popularity contest, but if you have a favorite, we want to hear about it. Have a suggestion for the Hive Five? Send us an email at tips+hivefive@lifehacker.com!

Photo by Marcus Kwan.

The heat is back. Summer is coming. The sun is out to get you—but don't lose hope. Here are our top 10 ways to beat the heat.

10. Ignore the Temperature

Heat fatigue might all be in your head. A study tested cyclists in different temperatures and found that the only ones who actually experienced heat fatigue were the ones who knew how hot it was. If you don't know, you don't really suffer from fatigue. Whether you're riding your bike or just walking around, avoid any instincts to check the temperature. If you don't know how hot it is, you'll probably feel better.

9. Keep Drinks Cooler by Freezing Water in Milk Containers

When you're bringing cold drinks out to the beach, the pool, the yard, the edge of a hellscape, or any other sunny outdoor area, you want them to actually stay cold. Ice does the trick, but transporting tons of ice can be a pain. Instead of buying bags of the stuff, just save some old milk cartons, fill them up with water, and freeze them. Because they're blocky they fit nicely in the cooler. If you need smaller blocks, just peel off the carton and crush the ice a bit. It's an easier and cheaper solution.

8. Hydrate Any Way You Can

The are a lot of hydration myths—like drinking soda doesn't help you at all or if you feel thirsty you're already dehydrated—and we've busted most of them. Water will often be your best bet when you need to stay hydrated, but it isn't your only option. If you only have soda or a sports drink, it can still help. You also don't need to drink eight glasses of whatever every single day. Just drink whenever you're thirsty and you should be in pretty good shape.

7. Beat the Bugs

When the heat wave comes, bugs often come with it. If you want to avoid these insects, there are quite a few things you can do. First, you want to make sure you're buying DEET-based bug spray because it's the most effective. You can also save yourself some cash by making your own citronella candles, outdoor torches, and bug traps. You can even ward off ants with chalk. So long as you're prepared, you shouldn't be bothered too much by the bugs.

6. Get the Hot Air Out of Your Car Fast

Every year I forget that leaving my car out in the sun makes the entire thing hot to the touch, which is especially unpleasant when you're not expecting it. While cooling off a hot car is always going to take a little time, there's a Japanese trick to get the stuffy air out fast. Basically, you open two parallel doors on your car, then open and close one of those doors repeatedly about five times. This pushes the warm air out and the cool air in. It's a really clever trick that only takes a minute. Just make sure you don't accidentally shut your hand in the door.

5. Stay Cool While You Sleep

When you're asleep, you can't actively combat the heat. You also probably have a tough time getting to sleep when you're overheating as it is. There are plenty of ways to stay cool at night so you can sleep comfortably despite the heat. For example, you can build your own air conditioner (or use an alternative method), get a cooling pillow like the Chillow, and put your sheets in the fridge before bedtime. Trial and error will decide which methods work best for you, but all will get you closer to a cool night's rest.

4. Keep Your Computer Cool

An overheating computer is a fire hazard. It's very important to keep it cool, especially in hot weather. If you don't have the best cooling system on your machine—especially if your home isn't air conditioned—you're going to want to look at getting a better one. The upcoming heat is also a great excuse to go inside your desktop and start blowing out all the dust. A cleaner computer will run a bit cooler, and it'll help you avoid a fire starting inside your case. For more tips and details on everything you need to do, check out our complete guide to keeping your computer cool.

3. Use the Heat to Your Advantage

When you know how heat works, you can use it to your advantage. To do that, all you really need is a basic understanding of thermodynamics. Then you'll know how to use heat to open jars more easily, how to dress to stay cooler, and how to keep your house from turning into an oven. It's science you can use!

2. Understand Sun Screen

Sunscreen doesn't actually work the way you think. First of all, most of them don't do anything and so you're wasting your time. If you're not buying a sunscreen that contains both zinc oxide and titanium dioxide, you're wasting your money. You also need to make sure you understand what an SPF rating is. SPF isn't like a sunscreen power level, but rather what determines how long the sunscreen will last before you need to reapply it. To better-understand SPF and learn about how sunscreen actually works, check out this infographic.

1. Learn Your Body's Cooling Spots for Temperature Reduction on the Quick

We all know that cooling off involves coming into contact with something cooler than ourselves (like The Fonz), but that personal temperature reduction can happen a lot faster if you know your body's quick cooling spots. Your neck and wrists are two of the best, but the top of your feet and insides of your ankles work, too (plus a few others). Just focus your ice pack, or whatever you're using too cool yourself, on those areas and you'll beat the heat in no time.

Photos by Liz Mc, dr_relling, Joost J. Bakker, alterfalter (Shutterstock).