But here’s the thing: even with Do Not Disturb mode switched on (and you can tell it’s on when the little half-moon icon is sitting at the top of the screen), there’s still a chance that your tranquility will be rudely interrupted by a buzz, a banner or some other iOS alert.

Read on for three ways to ensure your Do Not Disturb experience is perfectly tranquil, starting with…

“Do Not Disturb” mode may still allow your “Favorites” to call—that is, unless you change a key setting.

1. Don’t allow calls from anyone

The default setting for call blocking in Do Not Disturb is to allow calls from anyone on your Favorites list—perfect for making sure that, say, your sitter or your boss can always get your attention.

But what if you need an hour free of interruptions, no matter what? Try this…

Tap Settings, Do Not Disturb, Allow Calls From, then select “No One” from the list of options.

2. Block “repeated” calls

Of course, who can predict who’s going to be dialing your number for an emergency call? That’s the idea behind the “Repeated Calls” setting, which allows callers who dial your number twice within three minutes to break through Do Not Disturb mode.

A prudent idea, perhaps, but the Repeated Calls setting may also allow telemarketers and crank callers to penetrate your cone of silence.

Flip a switch to make sure repeat callers can’t break though Do Not Disturb mode—and while you’re at it, you can keep notifications from bothering you while your iPhone or iPad is awake.

In any case, you’ll want to switch Repeated Calls off if you want some true downtime.

Tap Settings, Do Not Disturb, then flip the Repeated Calls switch to the “off” position.

3. Silence alerts even when you’re using your iPhone or iPad

One of my biggest pet peeves about Do Not Disturb when it first launched with iOS 6 was that it only blocked calls and alerts when your iPhone or iPad was locked.

If you were actually using your device—say, to watch a movie, or read a really good Kindle book—you’d still get interrupted by pings, rings and beeps.

Luckily, the arrival of iOS 7 brought with it a new setting for Do Not Disturb that blocks calls and notifications at all times, even when you’re iPhone or iPad is awake.

Tap Settings, Do Not Disturb, scroll down to the Silence setting, then make sure “Always” (and not “Only while iPhone is locked”) is selected.

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That said, Lollipop is worth the wait thanks to a bevy of flashy new features, particularly one that’s quite overdue: “Priority” mode, which gives Android phones and tablets something akin to iOS’s “Do Not Disturb” feature.

Lollipop’s “Priority” mode finally brings some of the best features from third-party “do not disturb” apps—such as quiet times and lists of “priority” callers—to the standard Android operating system.

Up until the arrival of Lollipop, there were only a couple of ways to silence your rings, beeps, and other Android notifications.

One was to double-click the volume-down button, which enabled the simple but relatively effective “silent” mode. I say “relatively” effective because the Android alarm clock has a habit of overriding silent mode unless you tweak a setting within an individual alarm. There’s also no way to put silent mode on a schedule—such as say, from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. each day.

The other method for keeping your Android device quiet was was to find a third-party “do not disturb”-type apps in the Google Play store, but they’re of wildly varying quality and effectiveness; you can find some of my recommendations in this PCWorld article.

Lollipop’s “Priority” mode finally brings some of the best features from third-party “do not disturb” apps—such as quiet times and lists of “priority” callers—to the standard Android operating system.

Just double-click the volume-down button, and a pop-up window with a volume slider and three options will appear: None, which silences all your Android alerts, including alarms; Priority, which lets certain notifications and callers through, depending on your own custom settings; and All, which enables all your alerts.

Tap the Settings icon from “Priority” mode to pick and choose which alerts will get through during quiet time; for example, whether messages warrant an alert, which callers make the cut, and whether you’d like a regular “downtime” schedule.

You can also activate Priority mode and set it to turn off automatically after, say, an hour or two—a handy feature that’s missing in iOS’s “Do Not Disturb” mode, which I occasionally turn on during the day but forget to switch it back off.

All in all, pretty nice—but again, you’ll have to be patient until your particular Android phone or tablet gets the big Lollipop update. Here’s a recent Digital Trends article that details which makes and models of Android devices are next in line.

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As it stands, whenever I add a new calendar event on my iPhone or iPad, I always have to take a second or so to scroll down to the “Alert” setting, tap it, and then add a reminder time—anywhere from a week or a day before to five minutes prior, or the moment the event starts.

Related iOS tip: Alerts, banners, and badges—what’s the difference?

Manually adding alerts to my calendar events only takes a few seconds, but after a year or so, all those seconds add up to a big chunk of inefficiency. Time to make a change, no?

For standard Calendar events, your auto-reminder choices range from a week before to the moment the event begins.

Luckily, it’s easy to get all those seconds back. All it takes is a quick trip to the iOS Settings screen.

• Tap Settings, “Mail, Contacts, Calendars,” then scroll down to the Calendars section.
• See the Default Alert Times setting? Go ahead and tap it.
• Next, go ahead and select automatic alert times for up to three different types of calendar events: birthdays, generic events, and all-day events. For birthdays and all-day events, you can set a default alert anywhere from a week before to the morning of the event. For standard events, your auto-reminder choices range from a week before to the moment the event begins.
• All set? Just back out of the Settings screen—you’re done.

Now, head back to the Calendar app and create a new event—and when you do, you should see an alert already set up and ready to go. Looks like you just saved yourself a few seconds.

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Not bad, readers said, but is there any way to do something similar on a Mac? Good question.

Want to get email notifications for only your VIPs? You can do it by tweaking a single Mail setting.

The answer: Yes, you can. All you have to do is teach the Mac’s Mail app a few new tricks.

• The first step is to mark some of your contacts as VIPs. You can do it on your iPhone by following the steps in this tip. On a Mac, just open a message in Mail and click the little star next to the sender’s name in the “To:” field.
• Want to get email notifications for only your VIPs? Click the Mail menu (it’s in the top-left corner of the screen, provided the Mail app is running and active), select Preferences, click the General tab, then select “VIPs” in the “New Mail Notifications” setting. You can manage how Mail notifications work in general (for instance, whether they appear as banners that come and go or alerts that must be manually dismissed) by clicking the Apple menu and selecting System Preferences, Notifications, then clicking Mail.

Want notifications for all your new email messages, plus special alerts for VIP email? All you have to do is create a new Mail rule.

OK, but what if you want notifications for all your new email messages, plus special alerts for VIP email? If so, try this…

• Click the Mail menu, select Preferences, and click the Rules tab. From here, you can see and manage all the various rules that Mail follows when it comes to your messages—everything from mail filters and color-coding to automated replies and marking messages as “read” or “unread,” all based on the sender, the recipient, the subject line, and other factors.
• Let’s go ahead and create a new rule for VIPs. Click the Add Rule button, then label the rule in the “Description” field—say, “VIPs.” In the next line—the one that reads “If [any or all] of the following conditions are met,” make sure “any” is selected.
• Time to set a condition. Click the “Any recipient” drop-down menu and select “Sender is VIP.”
• Now, let’s create an action for Mail to perform once the condition is met. Under “Perform the following actions,” click the menu marked “Move Message” and select, say, “Play Sound,” then pick a new beep, ping, or buzz to sound off whenever you get an email from a VIP.
• Want something else to happen when a VIP message hits your inbox? Click the “+” button to the right of your “Play Sound” action to create a new action. For example, you could click the first pull-down menu and select “Bounce Icon in Dock” to make the Mail icon bounce whenever a VIP email arrives. You could also select “Set Color of Message” to make VIP messages stand out in your inbox, or “Mark as Flagged” to automatically flag emails from your inner circle. You can even set Mail to automatically forward VIP messages or reply with a pre-written response.
• All set? Then click OK.

You’ll get a prompt asking if you want to apply your new rule to existing messages. You can click Apply if you like, but keep in mind that if you set an action like “Reply to message,” Mail will start replying to all the VIP messages sitting in your inbox. Since the idea here is to alert you to new VIP messages, I’d suggest click the “Don’t Apply” button.

Want to edit or delete your new VIP rule? Just retrace your steps (Click Mail, Preferences, Rules), select the rule you just created, then click Edit, Duplicate, or Remove. You can also deactivate a rule without deleting it by unchecking its box in the “Active” column.

Bonus tip

Among many other possibilities, you can also set Mail to notify you of replies to an specific email thread, similar to this recent iOS tip.

Just create a new rule, select “Subject” and “contains” as the first condition of the rule, then enter a subject line. Mail will automatically fill in the subject of the message that’s currently selected.

Then, for the action, you can set up an alert like the one we just created for VIPs, or you can create your own custom action—anything you like.

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The trick: when you’re composing either a new email or a reply to an existing message, just tap the subject line.

When you tap the subject line, a little alert button will appear; tap it to set up a notification whenever someone replies to this particular thread.

When you do, a little alert bell will appear to the right of the subject. Go ahead and tap it, then tap the “Notify Me” confirmation button.

Want an alert for an email thread that you haven’t replied to yet? Just swipe it from right to left, tap the More button, then tap the “Notify Me” button.

Now, whenever someone replies to that particular thread, you’ll get an iOS notification on your iPhone or iPad. To manage the type of notification you get (a banner or an alert, with or without sound), tap Settings, Notifications, Mail, then Thread Notifications.

Want to turn the thread alert off? Go to your inbox, swipe the message thread from right to left, tap the More button, then tap “Stop Notifying.”

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