Enabling Do-Not-Disturb on my iPhone 6!

For those of you who know me well, you know that I work flexible hours and prefer a later schedule in life.  In general, it's rare that I'll be in bed before 2am and even more rare that I would be up before 10am on a daily basis.  I maintain a pretty regular sleeping schedule for both weekdays and weekdays and I almost never set an alarm clock.

I'm thankful that I have a job that allows me to work a flexible schedule, but at the same time if my job needs me earlier in the day, I will make myself available.  One way of maintaining a flex schedule is leaving my cell phone on while I sleep so that my manager can contact me if they need me early in the morning.  However, it's challenging when someone else contacts me while I'm sleeping and being a light sleeper, if I receive a text message I will wake up from hearing the sound.  It's analogous to someone calling you at 4am in the morning if you usually get up around 6am...

In the past I had to tell my friends not to text me before 10am, but it would continue or happen with new friends who didn't know this.  Fortunately for people like me, there is a Do-Not-Disturb feature with iPhone 6 (or maybe it's just the iOS, whatever)!  I started using it and it works perfectly!

"Do Not Disturb" is accessed via Settings and I've set mine to automatically enable between the hours of 2am and 10am, my usually sleeping period.  One thing I had trouble with is making it so that just a select people (like my manager or my family) can contact me.  The default options are Favorites, No One, and Everyone.

 

So I found this app called "Groups" that is free and you can make groups and add contacts to them.  I created one called Emergency and it is now an option that is selectable.

Already Do-Not-Disturb has helped, as I received a text from my friend on the east coast at 4am but didn't hear it. So wonderful!  Sleep (especially uninterrupted sleep) is so invaluable for a stress-free life.  Thank you iPhone!!!