Implement strategies to reduce noise and improve productivity in Slack chatter.
With remote work, notifications from communication apps like Slack often provide the soundtrack of our work day. It’s not surprising that 87% of US-based Slack users said the app improved communication and collaboration inside their organization (Slack survey). However, the powerful Knock Brush can also badly impact your [team's] productivity [- triggering all sorts of emotions - from happiness to anxiety! ]
Here are some tips to cut out noise for better Slack efficiency (it helped me spend 30-50% less time on Slack)
I love this quote by Patrick Lencioni (CEO, executive coach, and author of The Advantage) "if everything is important, then nothing is." Prioritization is critical, and by muting unnecessary notifications, you may miss a few dopamine hits, but you can commit your attention to where your input is required.
Convinced? Go to Preferences → Notifications -> Notify me about... to Direct messages, mentions & keywords or Nothing.
Enjoying the sound of silence? This is for you. Introducing the Mute button: a powerful tool, especially for channels with lots of automated notifications. Muting these channels helps to spend time on messages from actual humans (aka your teammates).
You can easily do this by clicking on the little bell 🔔 in each channel.
Something chemical happens to your brain when you see unread messages 🔴. Unlike your WhatsApp, in Slack, not all those messages are for you. Actually, very similar to the last WhatsApp group you recently muted. In the same way, you choose your notifications type, setting up your sidebar to reduce noise is an excellent way to ensure that you only spend time on messages that need your attention.
Here are the steps to set up your sidebar:
Go to Preferences → Sidebar, and choose the setting that works best for you.
☝️I'm currently on Direct messages, Mentions & Reactions, and Saved Items. I only see content that requires my response. However, you can also include Unread Messages, which is a little bit less extreme.
💡You can always use the search bar to find all the channels you had before.
Well, if there are tons of efficiency gains from working asynchronously, we also notice that it leads to more Slacks, documents, and videos than most people are used to working with.
In addition, a distributed team also means these communications can come outside “normal working hours.” At Getro, we provide the following guidelines for choosing the right channel for your communication:
🚨 Have a system for urgent requests
⏰ Respect the start & end of our days
Check this post if you are curious to know more about the tools we use as a distributed team.
Find a healthy routine that works for you. Here is mine as an example: start & end your days with a run-through of your communication channels (Slacks, Telegrams, Emails) to keep priorities timely:
Familiar with the get things done method? Here is how you can apply it to Slack:
Think about writing in a way that will minimize the time it takes your teammate to read & understand your message:
Already onboard with the paragraph above? Here are a couple of tips to bring your Slack communication to the next level:
Last but not least, the ultimate advice might come from my father himself (yup!). I can hear him say: “it's funny how when you don't follow your rules, they don't work.” From this, I would say:
You can do many things as an individual to help reduce the amount of noise you see on slack, but it will be a team effort to make Slack a better place to work.
Book a call with our team to see how you can put your network to work.