If you're like me you probably have certain areas on your site that are more important than others. You might have a contact form, a blog where visitors can comment, and a client portal to submit bugs. Clearly these three areas all have drastically different levels of importance to your business. But do you actually prioritize these notifications or do they all go to the same inbox?

Wouldn't it be great if you could get notices about bugs right away? What if you could get a notification when a user selects “I want to spend ${god-loads-of-money}” on your contact form?

I came up with a solution to solve these issues and I'm happy to announce that I've just released Text Message Notifications – my 3rd add-on for Ninja Forms!

Take Time Off

My weekends are precious to me. I only have 52 of them every year and they quickly get booked up with WordCamps, errands, and other commitments. That doesn't leave a lot of time for spending time with loved ones, getting out of the house (OMG there's this big yellow ball thing in the sky!), or relaxing and relaxing is just as important as working hard! So over the last couple years I've tried not checking my email during the weekends.

But here's the problem with not checking your email – sometimes there really are emergencies. The server crashes, a time sensitive deal isn't working, or there's an infinite loop in a contact form (yes, I've experienced this and it only ended after 13,000+ emails were sent). So what does a good developer do? You could certainly check your email every 15 minutes over the weekend but then you aren't going to come in relaxed Monday morning.

Prioritize your Notifications

We don't have to be stressed forever more always checking our email for an emergency. The trick here is to prioritize your notifications and allow yourself to respond to the most important issues. Figure out what's most important to your business and set up extra communication channels – like text messages. Now you can ignore your email knowing that your VIP clients can still contact you. And when you have a stress free weekend you can triage your inbox in no time when Monday morning inevitably arrives.

It's Not Just About the Weekends

It really isn't about the weekends. It's about anytime you don't want to check your email. There are emergencies and it's important to know about them ASAP. My manager has my cell phone number. He's never had to use it but I can relax knowing that if something is on fire he can contact me.

This is the entire reason I built the Ninja Forms Text Message Notifications Add-on. I wanted to make my life easier so I built a tool to do just that. I also wanted something simple – I could have connected to a 3rd party service to use a nice API but I don't want yet another login to remember. It took a few extra programmatic hoops to jump through but I use the carrier's SMS gateways to send text messages for free. No services, no apps, no fees, just a simple text message sent to your phone for your business critical needs.

I'm going to be relaxing this weekend. Are you?