Hacking Google Classroom Notifications - Post due date in instructions

Google Classroom rolled out a new feature this week. It's a much requested one. Classroom now notifies you if students submit late work. I found this out the hard way. I noticed that many of my students in my newly started enrichment class had forgotten to turn in their work, so I asked them to double check their turned in work in Google Classroom.

My inbox filled up immediately, since many of my students had done the work, but just forgotten to press that pretty little blue button. Since my phone and smartwatch both notify me of incoming emails, my pocket and my wrist started buzzing away. At first I thought it was cool, but in reality I struggled with this all week. Running to re-set the due dates so I wouldn't be flooded with notifications, deleting mountains of notifications that I didn't really need because I hadn't graded the assignment yet. In a perfect world, where I had time to review and grade every assignment on the day it was due, this feature would be perfect. What I really need is to know who has submitted after I grade the assignment, but I think I've figured out the hack.

From now on, I will post the due date for students in the text of the instructions on Google Classroom, and leave the official due date blank. Then, once I have graded the assignment, I will set the due date to the day I graded the assignment. This will eliminate notifications of late work until after I have reviewed the assignment, but still send me notifications of those true stragglers.