8 ms·

I don't mean to hijack the focus from email specifically, but i find slack suffers from the same, if not worse, issue. Without exception, the most productive da

I don't mean to hijack the focus from email specifically, but i find slack suffers from the same, if not worse, issue. Without exception, the most productive days i have had since my team adopted slack are the days when i forget to open it in the mornings, and achieve hours of uninterrupted work. All of these conversations, be it open-office/email/slack/etc are a rehashing of something we all know: fewer distractions leads to increased productivity. The trick is to balance that with collaboration and help channels, so the product and collective productivity of a team is improved, not just an individual's.

the_watcher 10y ago
I find Slack less distracting than email, simply because I spend far more time thinking about how to phrase my replies over email, while Slack is more conversational. That said, I've started limiting how often I check either, and have found that it helps with my workplace stress levels, as well as productivity.
toomuchtodo 10y ago
Could not agree more. Ive disabled Slack notifications on my phone entirely (and much prefer email over Slack; Slack creates an unnecessary sense of urgency). Unless the shop is burning down, nothing needs my attention immediately. If it does, call my cell. Some things deserve purposeful friction.
codebeaker 10y ago
I thoroughly recommend Cal Newport's book "Deep Work" if you want to understand the drivers of this effect, and help make constructive arguments in favour of a less connected workplace. (replied to the top thread, but it's applicable to everyone in this sub-threaD)
giancarlostoro 10y ago
I try to use it when convenient such as sharing URLs or files, but we have an open office setup at my job, so it's easier to just talk to one another.
bogomipz 10y ago
I completely agree. My experience was it started out well, and then the number of channels proliferates within an organization and before you know it you have 15 conversations going on in 15 different channels because creating channels is cheap and then you have direct person to person messages on top of that. It exponentiates pretty quickly. There seems to a real time expectation to Slack . Conversely I check email once an hour maybe.
pgodzin 10y ago
I work remotely from the rest of my team, and only started a few months ago. Often, I have quick questions or clarifications that I can't ask about in person, and need to ask over Slack. Sometimes I don't get responses for hours (meetings, busy, etc), which blocks me on my tasks for the rest of the day. I would be immensely less productive without reasonable latency back-and-forth. I get needing time without distractions - but when your work is used / others are dependent on it, how do you tradeoff that support?
- 989809809809 10y ago
  Excuse me, but if not getting in touch with your colleagues blocks you for the whole day then you probably have the bigger problems than just not getting your questions answered on time: 1. Maybe documentation is scarce, be it code comments or business requirements specs, user stories, epics, etc. 2. Maybe your tasks are ill defined, and you accepted your assignments without asking enough questions upfront... 3. Maybe you don't get enough workload (if you had many tasks to choose from it would be harder to get blocked on all of them) 4. maybe you lack some technical knowledge or other competencies needed to make the decisions yourself instead of asking others.
  - brianwawok 10y ago
    That is rubbish. Many reasonably complex projects require a reasonable amount of communication. This list sounds like you have only worked on 1 man toy projects.
    - gcp 10y ago
      Communication, yes. But synchronous, blocking communication? You have an organizational problem there.
      - brianwawok 10y ago
        Again, I disagree. Any reasonably complex codebase I have worked in has at least parts that only a few people understood. Even if n=3, you could still very easily be blocked when trying to find someone in the know...
abraae 10y ago
In the old days, we had intranets, knowledge bases, wikis and we tried manfully but unsuccessfully to somehow get people to document the good shit so others could use it for reference material. Seems we've now given up on that and the new working model is just to blurt out questions in some push system, bugging everyone in the process, and then hope that someone blurts back an answer.
- vacri 10y ago
  'Blurt' seems like a good name for a chat system...
  - douche 10y ago
    I mean, one of these unified communication/Facebook-clone thing-a-majiggers is called Yammer... https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/yammer https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/yammer
- afarrell 10y ago
  I wish that I could install a version of Quora on my company's local network which would preserve that Q & A knowledge and make it more searchable. Tangent: It has been 7 years since their founding. How does Quora make money?
  - abraae 10y ago
    Its surprising no-one's working on that, given Yammer is basically a SaaS Facebook. Or maybe they are, but they can't be found. I've noticed this before, but you can't google for something like "SaaS version of Quora" because all you'll get is results - in Quora - about SaaS. Same for "in-house Quora". So maybe someone does offer a Quora-like product for the enterprise, but they're consigned to invisibility.
  - lwf 10y ago
    Askbot exists[1] -- its look-and-feel is more akin to StackOverflow than Quora, but it's pretty widely deployed[2][3] [1]: https://askbot.com/ https://askbot.com/ [2]: https://ask.fedoraproject.org/ https://ask.fedoraproject.org/ [3]: https://ask.libreoffice.org/ https://ask.libreoffice.org/
brightball 10y ago
I'm finding the Pomodoro timer in Gnome really helpful on this front fwiw. YMMV
l33tbro 10y ago
I think Slack feels good if you're the one managing the team. But if you're the one actually slogging away at building the thing, it's incredibly frustrating and makes it impossible to get into flow.
afarrell 10y ago
I wish I could put slack in a "burst-mode" Where it would only show new messages every N minutes. Ideally, I would have the self-discipline to only check it that often. In reality, if I was going to find a way to develop that self-discipline, I would have done so at some point in the past 10 years of searching. Code is much easier than applied psychology. Suggestions welcome.
- scrollaway 10y ago
  Could you maybe write a devtools extension which puts the page into offline mode for n minutes every n+1 minutes?
- nextos 10y ago
  If you implement a setup where your email reader is decoupled from the program that fetches emails, this is trivial to do. Personally, I use mutt + mbsync. I have bound key 0 to call mbsync from mutt. I try to check email only twice per day [1]. I'm in the process of switching to gnus + mbsync. This has the additional advantage of gnus being close to a news reader, which is optimized for an inbox-zero way of reading. Since my email often carries stressful news, I love having my inbox "paused". I pull emails. They are not pushed to me. Way saner. [1] http://pmarchive.com/guide_to_personal_productivity.html http://pmarchive.com/guide_to_personal_productivity.html
- bitexploder 10y ago
  It is Cmd+Q for me. Tongue in cheek here, but you have the power. You have permission from me, bitexploder to close Slack and work for focused periods of 1-2 hours. Seriously though, it may be a little uncomfortable. If it seems to cause friction with colleagues just explain it. Ensure you block out time to be responsive, respond, and help others out. Slack should be a "help if I can" avenue not demand of your attention. I call it digest mode. Open once every hour or two when I am thinking hard. Email the same. Some mornings I let everyone know I am heads down and will come up for air and help out with things in the afternoon. Our addiction to instant and easy answers can be very problematic. It is the only way. Some of the time when I feel the urge for distractions or chat or email I just sit with one or two apps open (Editor and music) and I sit there until the boredom wins and the task becomes more appealing. Once that hurdle is overcome things are great.
creativityland 10y ago
Have you tried playing around with the notification settings, or simply turning notifications off? I find Slack to be distracting in certain channels, or groups that you may join, but there are many ways to manage it to optimize for productivity.
- emodendroket 10y ago
  The problem is that it creates a certain expectation of instant response if you are directly contacted.
general_ai 10y ago
I ban Slack through my hosts file at work. If someone wants to interrupt me, they have to get off their ass and come do so in person.
- richardwhiuk 10y ago
  Why bother installing it then?
  - stronglikedan 10y ago
    Parent probably means the web version (if there is one - I don't use Slack), judging from the mention of the hosts file. I've had to do things like that, due to my personal lack of self control.
    - general_ai 10y ago
      Exactly. I also ban FB, Reddit, and much of the other bullshit at work (and on work laptop). HN is not banned (yet), since SNR is not zero here.
      - rootlocus 10y ago
        > FB, Reddit, and much of the other bullshit If they're bullshit, how come you lack the discipline to abstain from checking them? > HN is not banned (yet), since SNR is not zero here. I might be misjudging, but you make it sound as if you're pretentious about the content you consume when actually you're placing external constraints trying to prevent yourself from consuming bullshit. In that case, more discipline would be the healthier solution.
rootlocus 10y ago
What's your role in the team? How are you using slack? If you're a team lead, or someone with significant business or technical knowledge, helping other people on slack might increase their productivity, and the productivity of the team. That may be more important than your own productivity, or it may even be your responsibility. In this case, not being available is unfair to your team. I use the slack app which displays a notification icon in the task bar. When I get personal messages (which usually require immediate attention) the icon shows a red dot (I also get a notification). If people chat in public rooms the icon shows a blue dot (and I don't get a notification). I don't check slack, I just glance at color of the dot. Interrupts are pretty rare, and I'm always available if someone needs me. I'm not, however, a central member of the team, so people don't often come to me for technical or business advice. If I were, however, I wouldn't shut down their line of communication because "screw you, I need to work".
joelthelion 10y ago
I think it's the same for slack as it is for email: simply turn off notifications.
lmm 10y ago
> Without exception, the most productive days i have had since my team adopted slack are the days when i forget to open it in the mornings, and achieve hours of uninterrupted work. "Productive" in what sense? In my experience that's a good way to spend hours writing some gnarly logic that will feel very satisfying to write... but not actually be what the user wanted.
- JoeAltmaier 10y ago
  You don't need continuous feedback every minute (or even every day). If you know what you're doing and get in a thrall, 'closed door' days can be amazing.
  - lmm 10y ago
    If I knew what I was doing I wouldn't be working for a company at all. I have the programming expertise but I don't have the business expertise. And I find the more granular back-and-forth I can have with someone who does, the better the end result.
    - Declanomous 10y ago
      It depends on what your role is. I'm a marketing analyst, and 80% of the communication I have is people checking up on their favorite project. I used to be the last cube at the end of a dead-end office, and my new cube is basically right be the door in a hallway-ish office. I'm half as productive because of all the people dropping in to ask me questions. I think all the communication options we have make people anxious if we aren't communicating. It's like cell phones. People lose their minds if their phone breaks and people can't contact them immediately, but people survived for tens of thousands of years without that ability.
      - lmm 10y ago
        Well for tens of thousands of years people lived in close-knit communities where they could communicate with all their friends every day by talking to them. To recover that while being able to live in a city and choose our friends and gain all the advantages that come with that, we need other means of communication. My phone's in for repair at the moment, so I'm very conscious of how much difference it makes to my life. Waiting is a lot more boring without it. I've had some good times that I wouldn't have been able to without modern communications (last-minute parties that I'd've missed if I hadn't been so easy to contact). And fundamentally I like talking to my friends (interestingly this is something that has changed as I've got older - when I was 20 or so I was much more content spending days at a time on my own). I would certainly advise pruning any communication sources that don't bring you joy, KonMari-style. But don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
syngrog66 10y ago
good points. and to expand on that I'd say a good percentage of HN posts/comments are a case of "newbs/young rediscovering/reinventing what us older folks figured out long ago, ad nauseum." The older I get I have to sigh and skip over more and more of what's on HN.

the_watcher 10y ago

I find Slack less distracting than email, simply because I spend far more time thinking about how to phrase my replies over email, while Slack is more conversational. That said, I've started limiting how often I check either, and have found that it helps with my workplace stress levels, as well as productivity.

toomuchtodo 10y ago

Could not agree more. Ive disabled Slack notifications on my phone entirely (and much prefer email over Slack; Slack creates an unnecessary sense of urgency). Unless the shop is burning down, nothing needs my attention immediately. If it does, call my cell. Some things deserve purposeful friction.

codebeaker 10y ago

I thoroughly recommend Cal Newport's book "Deep Work" if you want to understand the drivers of this effect, and help make constructive arguments in favour of a less connected workplace. (replied to the top thread, but it's applicable to everyone in this sub-threaD)

giancarlostoro 10y ago

I try to use it when convenient such as sharing URLs or files, but we have an open office setup at my job, so it's easier to just talk to one another.

bogomipz 10y ago

I completely agree. My experience was it started out well, and then the number of channels proliferates within an organization and before you know it you have 15 conversations going on in 15 different channels because creating channels is cheap and then you have direct person to person messages on top of that. It exponentiates pretty quickly. There seems to a real time expectation to Slack . Conversely I check email once an hour maybe.

pgodzin 10y ago

I work remotely from the rest of my team, and only started a few months ago. Often, I have quick questions or clarifications that I can't ask about in person, and need to ask over Slack. Sometimes I don't get responses for hours (meetings, busy, etc), which blocks me on my tasks for the rest of the day. I would be immensely less productive without reasonable latency back-and-forth. I get needing time without distractions - but when your work is used / others are dependent on it, how do you tradeoff that support?

989809809809 10y ago
Excuse me, but if not getting in touch with your colleagues blocks you for the whole day then you probably have the bigger problems than just not getting your questions answered on time: 1. Maybe documentation is scarce, be it code comments or business requirements specs, user stories, epics, etc. 2. Maybe your tasks are ill defined, and you accepted your assignments without asking enough questions upfront... 3. Maybe you don't get enough workload (if you had many tasks to choose from it would be harder to get blocked on all of them) 4. maybe you lack some technical knowledge or other competencies needed to make the decisions yourself instead of asking others.
- brianwawok 10y ago
  That is rubbish. Many reasonably complex projects require a reasonable amount of communication. This list sounds like you have only worked on 1 man toy projects.
  - gcp 10y ago
    Communication, yes. But synchronous, blocking communication? You have an organizational problem there.
    - brianwawok 10y ago
      Again, I disagree. Any reasonably complex codebase I have worked in has at least parts that only a few people understood. Even if n=3, you could still very easily be blocked when trying to find someone in the know...

abraae 10y ago

In the old days, we had intranets, knowledge bases, wikis and we tried manfully but unsuccessfully to somehow get people to document the good shit so others could use it for reference material. Seems we've now given up on that and the new working model is just to blurt out questions in some push system, bugging everyone in the process, and then hope that someone blurts back an answer.

vacri 10y ago
'Blurt' seems like a good name for a chat system...
- douche 10y ago
  I mean, one of these unified communication/Facebook-clone thing-a-majiggers is called Yammer... https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/yammer https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/yammer
afarrell 10y ago
I wish that I could install a version of Quora on my company's local network which would preserve that Q & A knowledge and make it more searchable. Tangent: It has been 7 years since their founding. How does Quora make money?
- abraae 10y ago
  Its surprising no-one's working on that, given Yammer is basically a SaaS Facebook. Or maybe they are, but they can't be found. I've noticed this before, but you can't google for something like "SaaS version of Quora" because all you'll get is results - in Quora - about SaaS. Same for "in-house Quora". So maybe someone does offer a Quora-like product for the enterprise, but they're consigned to invisibility.
- lwf 10y ago
  Askbot exists[1] -- its look-and-feel is more akin to StackOverflow than Quora, but it's pretty widely deployed[2][3] [1]: https://askbot.com/ https://askbot.com/ [2]: https://ask.fedoraproject.org/ https://ask.fedoraproject.org/ [3]: https://ask.libreoffice.org/ https://ask.libreoffice.org/

brightball 10y ago

I'm finding the Pomodoro timer in Gnome really helpful on this front fwiw. YMMV

l33tbro 10y ago

I think Slack feels good if you're the one managing the team. But if you're the one actually slogging away at building the thing, it's incredibly frustrating and makes it impossible to get into flow.

afarrell 10y ago

I wish I could put slack in a "burst-mode" Where it would only show new messages every N minutes. Ideally, I would have the self-discipline to only check it that often. In reality, if I was going to find a way to develop that self-discipline, I would have done so at some point in the past 10 years of searching. Code is much easier than applied psychology. Suggestions welcome.

scrollaway 10y ago
Could you maybe write a devtools extension which puts the page into offline mode for n minutes every n+1 minutes?
nextos 10y ago
If you implement a setup where your email reader is decoupled from the program that fetches emails, this is trivial to do. Personally, I use mutt + mbsync. I have bound key 0 to call mbsync from mutt. I try to check email only twice per day [1]. I'm in the process of switching to gnus + mbsync. This has the additional advantage of gnus being close to a news reader, which is optimized for an inbox-zero way of reading. Since my email often carries stressful news, I love having my inbox "paused". I pull emails. They are not pushed to me. Way saner. [1] http://pmarchive.com/guide_to_personal_productivity.html http://pmarchive.com/guide_to_personal_productivity.html
bitexploder 10y ago
It is Cmd+Q for me. Tongue in cheek here, but you have the power. You have permission from me, bitexploder to close Slack and work for focused periods of 1-2 hours. Seriously though, it may be a little uncomfortable. If it seems to cause friction with colleagues just explain it. Ensure you block out time to be responsive, respond, and help others out. Slack should be a "help if I can" avenue not demand of your attention. I call it digest mode. Open once every hour or two when I am thinking hard. Email the same. Some mornings I let everyone know I am heads down and will come up for air and help out with things in the afternoon. Our addiction to instant and easy answers can be very problematic. It is the only way. Some of the time when I feel the urge for distractions or chat or email I just sit with one or two apps open (Editor and music) and I sit there until the boredom wins and the task becomes more appealing. Once that hurdle is overcome things are great.

creativityland 10y ago

Have you tried playing around with the notification settings, or simply turning notifications off? I find Slack to be distracting in certain channels, or groups that you may join, but there are many ways to manage it to optimize for productivity.

emodendroket 10y ago
The problem is that it creates a certain expectation of instant response if you are directly contacted.

general_ai 10y ago

I ban Slack through my hosts file at work. If someone wants to interrupt me, they have to get off their ass and come do so in person.

richardwhiuk 10y ago
Why bother installing it then?
- stronglikedan 10y ago
  Parent probably means the web version (if there is one - I don't use Slack), judging from the mention of the hosts file. I've had to do things like that, due to my personal lack of self control.
  - general_ai 10y ago
    Exactly. I also ban FB, Reddit, and much of the other bullshit at work (and on work laptop). HN is not banned (yet), since SNR is not zero here.
    - rootlocus 10y ago
      > FB, Reddit, and much of the other bullshit If they're bullshit, how come you lack the discipline to abstain from checking them? > HN is not banned (yet), since SNR is not zero here. I might be misjudging, but you make it sound as if you're pretentious about the content you consume when actually you're placing external constraints trying to prevent yourself from consuming bullshit. In that case, more discipline would be the healthier solution.

rootlocus 10y ago

What's your role in the team? How are you using slack? If you're a team lead, or someone with significant business or technical knowledge, helping other people on slack might increase their productivity, and the productivity of the team. That may be more important than your own productivity, or it may even be your responsibility. In this case, not being available is unfair to your team. I use the slack app which displays a notification icon in the task bar. When I get personal messages (which usually require immediate attention) the icon shows a red dot (I also get a notification). If people chat in public rooms the icon shows a blue dot (and I don't get a notification). I don't check slack, I just glance at color of the dot. Interrupts are pretty rare, and I'm always available if someone needs me. I'm not, however, a central member of the team, so people don't often come to me for technical or business advice. If I were, however, I wouldn't shut down their line of communication because "screw you, I need to work".

joelthelion 10y ago

I think it's the same for slack as it is for email: simply turn off notifications.

lmm 10y ago

> Without exception, the most productive days i have had since my team adopted slack are the days when i forget to open it in the mornings, and achieve hours of uninterrupted work. "Productive" in what sense? In my experience that's a good way to spend hours writing some gnarly logic that will feel very satisfying to write... but not actually be what the user wanted.

JoeAltmaier 10y ago
You don't need continuous feedback every minute (or even every day). If you know what you're doing and get in a thrall, 'closed door' days can be amazing.
- lmm 10y ago
  If I knew what I was doing I wouldn't be working for a company at all. I have the programming expertise but I don't have the business expertise. And I find the more granular back-and-forth I can have with someone who does, the better the end result.
  - Declanomous 10y ago
    It depends on what your role is. I'm a marketing analyst, and 80% of the communication I have is people checking up on their favorite project. I used to be the last cube at the end of a dead-end office, and my new cube is basically right be the door in a hallway-ish office. I'm half as productive because of all the people dropping in to ask me questions. I think all the communication options we have make people anxious if we aren't communicating. It's like cell phones. People lose their minds if their phone breaks and people can't contact them immediately, but people survived for tens of thousands of years without that ability.
    - lmm 10y ago
      Well for tens of thousands of years people lived in close-knit communities where they could communicate with all their friends every day by talking to them. To recover that while being able to live in a city and choose our friends and gain all the advantages that come with that, we need other means of communication. My phone's in for repair at the moment, so I'm very conscious of how much difference it makes to my life. Waiting is a lot more boring without it. I've had some good times that I wouldn't have been able to without modern communications (last-minute parties that I'd've missed if I hadn't been so easy to contact). And fundamentally I like talking to my friends (interestingly this is something that has changed as I've got older - when I was 20 or so I was much more content spending days at a time on my own). I would certainly advise pruning any communication sources that don't bring you joy, KonMari-style. But don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

syngrog66 10y ago

good points. and to expand on that I'd say a good percentage of HN posts/comments are a case of "newbs/young rediscovering/reinventing what us older folks figured out long ago, ad nauseum." The older I get I have to sigh and skip over more and more of what's on HN.