Using slack the better way. Part 1
Managing distractions and using slack as a productivity tool than like a social media app in workplace
Needless to say, Slack is a great tool and an amazing messaging platform for work. It has reduced my usage of email inside a workplace to almost zero. But, are we using it the right way? At least I was not until recently.
Slack is good at distracting you with work. Essentially, it is mostly a distraction but work if you are an Individual Contributor.
More importantly, Slack is always the top used app I spend time on during work hours. Recently, I was thinking to ‘use Slack the way I wanted’ than the way of ‘how I was habituated with slack’ or ‘maybe the way Slack was made to be used.
Firstly, we’ll see how not to use slack like a workspace’s social media app.
Secondly, let’s see what apps I use out of slack to be productive and see if those could be replaced with slack directly.
Slack is not a social media
Slack is a messaging platform and we should be using it mindfully. It has done wonders in making a company culture transparent, helping people communicate faster and with fun. But work is just not all that. Especially in a software development environment, we are supposed to do much of the focus work and produce quality output.
So, have downtime from slack as well. Slack has mindfully built features to help it, unlike actual social media platforms.
Snooze notifications
The familiar ting sound of notification. Just kill it.
Trust me, it works. It’s a bit of an extreme but it’s worth it. If your work environment is not software development, ask slack to notify only about Mention and DMs.
Update your status that you are doing ‘focus work’ and Snooze notifications
This way people can still notify you if really urgent
If your focus work is usually at certain hours, schedule it.
can use the /dnd command anywhere in slack. Examples: /dnd for 15 mins, /dnd until 17:00, /dnd off
Muting channels
Yes, you should mute channels that are not interesting to you but you still want to know what’s happening once in a while
FOMO is real but your work is more real 😛
Please leave channels if you have joined by mistake.
Muting conversations
This might feel too much to do, but trust me. Every distraction from your focus work is going to costs you more.
While in office communication, there would’ve been some conversations where you needed to just give one or few information and leave the room. Those exist in slack also. Once you think you can leave the room, you should do it.
It is never rude. And people need you back they can pull you back by @mentioning your name.
Organize Sections
only go through other channels in free time
An additional tip: can remove the ‘all unreads’ section from the sidebar
Ask people to DM if urgent and restrict all other communications in channels
This is 2 in one
promotes transparency in the workplace
grouping work-related stuff into specific channels
This is a cultural upgrade to do as well. The whole company would have to change but you could be the start.
Okay, these above things are just for the sake of getting out of distractions, is there more in slack? Yes, next comes maintaining the action items in slack.