Update notifiers on Arch (and EndeavourOS) are completely pointless. There are always updates available, unless you’ve just updated.
checkupdates is a good script for when you want to safely check for updates, without actually updating (typically, you should never answer n when you run pacman -Syu, because that’s the same as running pacman -Sy).
I tend regularly update all my computers weekly, although I’ve let a couple of them go as long as month without issues. I wouldn’t recommend letting them go longer than that, and would say update as frequently as you wish. I like the Arch linux update indicator for gnome, it lets me check it to see if any of the updates are going to require me to reboot. If I don’t have to reboot I just do the update right then, if I have to reboot I generally wait for a convenient time.
I know pamac from my days with Manjaro but also prefer the terminal.
I was thinking of installing enos-gnome on a spare partition anyways, not for the sake of the functionality that that extension provides.
And thanks for the offer for the conky. I am used to a minimalist desktop with no icons no nothing apart from a minimalist wallpaper. Panel(s) and dock(s) (if present) set to autohide.
However, whenever you post a screenshot from your desktop, I am impressed with the wealth of information you get on your screen.
As I once posted - my interest in minimalism has become minimal. Mostly because I keep messing it up by running apps! Thus, I settle for instant access to the info I am most likely to want to see quickly, for filling some of the excessive screen real estate (2 monitors, a 3840x2160 and 1 @1200x1600, but appearing to be 1.5x that by scaling - so effectively 1800x2400). What I still haven’t got figure out is how to hide the conkys like I hide my Plank - called only by mouse pointer proximity…
That’s minimalism at play!
That would be a really nice solution if you could figure it out!
I’m usually updating on Fridays. Leaves the weekend free for fixing stuff. And if something does bork, I try switching to the lts kernel first. Usually helps.
Are you also interested in apathy?
I got close with Unity/Compiz - with hot corners instead of F keys triggering scripts - but putting them back away again is tougher! 
I can write “C” code that Kernighan and Ritchie would recognize, but not that does anything useful these days…