The Sidebar Clutter Vector
macOS features a unified Notification Center that slides in from the right side of the screen. Alongside your missed alerts, Apple aggressively populates this sidebar with dynamic widgets (such as the Calendar, Weather, Stocks, and Screen Time graphs). For users who simply want to read their notifications in peace, these large, colourful widgets consume massive amounts of vertical screen space, pushing critical alerts below the fold and introducing unnecessary visual clutter.
How to Remove Widgets from the Notification Center
You can strip the Notification Center down to its core functionality by manually deleting every widget from the sidebar.
1. Open the Notification Center by clicking the Date and Time in the extreme top-right corner of your menu bar (or by swiping left with two fingers from the right edge of your trackpad).
2. Scroll to the very bottom of the Notification Center panel.
3. Click the Edit Widgets button.
4. The interface will shift into a dedicated editing mode. Look at the widgets currently active in your sidebar on the right.
5. Click the small grey minus (-) icon in the top-left corner of every single widget to delete it from the list.
6. Once the sidebar is completely empty of widgets, click the Done button in the bottom right corner (or simply click anywhere on your main desktop).
The Notification Center will now function purely as a clean, uninterrupted chronological list of your recent system and app alerts.