Slack, as their stock ticker suggests, is about getting $WORK done! Among its qualities, allowing distributed teams to work effectively is near the top of the list for why modern organizations are using it.
It's also a tool which can perpetuate always-available culture, disrupt work-life balance, and reduce focus.
Now, before we get into the nitty gritty. I should state that this is not a problem with Slack. This is a cultural problem and no one tool will fix or resolve it. Slack is simply the most popular tool out there, and thus a good analog to our problem.
So, in this post. I'll share with you strategies in shifting how you use Slack that'll continue to give you all the benefits you enjoy, while boosting your productivity (and sanity)
I should caveat that some jobs require you to be on Slack at all times. Think customer support roles, etc. Just remember to follow this advice on your lunch (and after hours) :)
Prioritization is hard, made more difficult when a notification provides no sense of priority
Depending on the size of your organization, you are likely part of dozens of Slack channels. You've perhaps muted some that are mainly noise.
You'll be pinged -- either via @here, @channel, or directly -- in any of those channels from time to time. Slack has no sense of priority for a message (although it has experimented with this in the past) so it's nearly impossible to know what you should read immediately versus later.
Similar to advice I'd give with email, I'd recommend to not have Slack open for chunks of the day. My routine with email is to check-in three times a day. Morning, lunch, end of day. On days of more focus, this is reduced to a single morning check-in.
There is absolutely no reason that you could not do the same thing with Slack.
I won't lie to you. I think this is really difficult! We love to be engaged with our team, but we also love focus. If you struggle with the notion of not checking Slack for hours on end, try using the Pomodoro Technique to go through intervals of focus and break, where-in you then could pop into Slack.
Setting good expectations for yourself can help shape your organization
Unless your workplace has a written-down Slack / real-time communications policy, the expectations will likely be inconsistent across teams and managers.
Your manager pings you with a question. You don't know this yet because hey, it's 11am and you've been working hard on a refactor of your redux-forms implementation!
You've wrapped up a good sprint of work and see the question. Your manager had a question ahead of going into a meeting about a technical detail about the product, that only you would know.
How do you feel? You missed the opportunity to help them. In my battle to reduce the amount of time your eyes are on Slack, this is also a less ideal case than typical notifications.
But I highlight it because even in such timely challenges, there's improvements your manager and team can make to the process.
Now, I'm going to assume your manager is not an asshole and would value your feedback if they brought up your reaction times on Slack. In a 1:1, this would be an empowering time for you to bring up why you don't always immediately respond, highlighting your desire to focus.
You can then work together to find ways to improve documentation and communication. If you know that next week on Tuesday, a big launch is occurring for your team, you will keep more eyes on Slack that day.
And that's an important distinction. Situations are not binary; If you're empowered with the knowledge of when important events are occurring, you're able to use your judgement on how active you are on Slack. Ultimately, you're a good person who wants to help your team.
It's about finding a balance where you can thrive, setting healthy expectations, while also supporting your team when they need it.
Never allow Slack to take over all your screens
No Slack-sanity article is complete without the recommendation to turn off notifications.
Not just on your desktop, but your phone too. Remove the ability for your focus to be disrupted across screens. We've already discussed the need to set expectations and keep your eyes off Slack on a regular basis, so this just drives that home.
But it's dually important when you get away from work. Think weekends, vacation.
How many of your bosses do you know respond or check-in on Slack during vacation? Honestly, it's not healthy, and the expectation you should set is the opposite of that.
How you manage Slack yourself can spread healthy habits across your team, and perhaps organization. Through conversations with your manager and sharing strategy with your teammates, these small but powerful adjustments in work can trickle-up to the top, all the while making your team more focused on what matters.
Finally, of course -- sometimes you just want to watch cat gifs, and that's OK. Enjoy your new, adjusted Slack expectations but don't forget what's truly important -- cats on the internet.
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