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> I see people with things like Slack and IM binging away at them all day long, and I just can't fathom how they get anything done. It just needs turning off.

by harryf 10y ago

> I see people with things like Slack and IM binging away at them all day long, and I just can't fathom how they get anything done. It just needs turning off. Truth is they're not getting much done but they feel like they are. Actually that's an over simplification. With something like Slack people get less of "their own" work done but more of certain types of group activity such knowledge sharing, forming a consensus and decision making. In other words any kind of activity that requires extended periods (30mins+) of concentrated work will suffer if you're tapped in to Slack or otherwise. That includes things like writing code, creating a presentation, planning a project and similar...

zeta0134 10y ago
Speak for yourself. I program with a buddy, and we regularly use our instant messaging window as sort of a brain dump. Whenever I need to work out something particularly complex or ambiguous, I'll explain it to my friend in chats and go over the points I'm on the fence about. Often either he'll pipe up and offer suggestions, or the rubber duck debugging method will kick in and I'll figure out something on my own. (Having an audience, even a perceived one that may or may not actually be playing Fallout and not paying one bit of attention at the time, is very beneficial.) I think the potential for IMs to be distracting is there, but my closest friends all fully understand that I will respond whenever I have a moment, and so will they, so we don't have a sense of urgency with the thing. It's more like an extended conversation with history, so we can come back to it, catch ourselves up by reading what they wrote (sometimes hours inbetween responses) and pick right up where we left off.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  Sure, it's not the tool, it's how people use it. Though to be fair, the default, common use case is responding immediately. You have to make a conscious decision to ignore pending messages until the time is right - and more importantly, you need to keep to that decision against pressure from your friends and cow-orkers. If you can do that, then asynchronous communication is a huge win. Personally, I still find e-mail to be my favourite tool, but as with phone calls, I'm constantly teaching people that - unless the request is really important, I'll reply whenever I feel like it, which may not be under 24 hours.
TeMPOraL 10y ago
I concur. I've recently forced myself to limit time I allow myself to check and respond to e-mail and Facebook Messenger, as well as HN, to a few short, well-defined blocks during the day. My general ability to get things done skyrocketed. I feel constant barrage of notifications and distractions simply fragment your time. Like, whether you do that communication in one short block or keep the mail/IM constantly open, you generally accomplish the same amount of "communication" in a day. But the second case is like fragmented heap - it reduces the length of consecutive free memory blocks, making you increasingly unable to allocate larger blocks of continuous memory. Instant reaction to incoming messages does the same with concentration, making it hard to perform tasks that require longer stretches of focused work.

by harryf 10y ago

zeta0134 10y ago

Speak for yourself. I program with a buddy, and we regularly use our instant messaging window as sort of a brain dump. Whenever I need to work out something particularly complex or ambiguous, I'll explain it to my friend in chats and go over the points I'm on the fence about. Often either he'll pipe up and offer suggestions, or the rubber duck debugging method will kick in and I'll figure out something on my own. (Having an audience, even a perceived one that may or may not actually be playing Fallout and not paying one bit of attention at the time, is very beneficial.) I think the potential for IMs to be distracting is there, but my closest friends all fully understand that I will respond whenever I have a moment, and so will they, so we don't have a sense of urgency with the thing. It's more like an extended conversation with history, so we can come back to it, catch ourselves up by reading what they wrote (sometimes hours inbetween responses) and pick right up where we left off.

TeMPOraL 10y ago
Sure, it's not the tool, it's how people use it. Though to be fair, the default, common use case is responding immediately. You have to make a conscious decision to ignore pending messages until the time is right - and more importantly, you need to keep to that decision against pressure from your friends and cow-orkers. If you can do that, then asynchronous communication is a huge win. Personally, I still find e-mail to be my favourite tool, but as with phone calls, I'm constantly teaching people that - unless the request is really important, I'll reply whenever I feel like it, which may not be under 24 hours.

TeMPOraL 10y ago

I concur. I've recently forced myself to limit time I allow myself to check and respond to e-mail and Facebook Messenger, as well as HN, to a few short, well-defined blocks during the day. My general ability to get things done skyrocketed. I feel constant barrage of notifications and distractions simply fragment your time. Like, whether you do that communication in one short block or keep the mail/IM constantly open, you generally accomplish the same amount of "communication" in a day. But the second case is like fragmented heap - it reduces the length of consecutive free memory blocks, making you increasingly unable to allocate larger blocks of continuous memory. Instant reaction to incoming messages does the same with concentration, making it hard to perform tasks that require longer stretches of focused work.