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I don’t have ADHD but I get very distracted by Slack. Here’s what worked for me. 1. Slack app uninstalled on my phone. If I need it for something, I install it

I don’t have ADHD but I get very distracted by Slack. Here’s what worked for me. 1. Slack app uninstalled on my phone. If I need it for something, I install it, use it, then delete again. 2. Slack app on my laptop fully closed by default. 3. Set times (about 5 a day) to check in and respond to notifications and scan channels. When I was a senior manager with lots of actually important messages these blocks were about half an hour each (for a total of about 2.5 hours a day). These days I can get away with less than 10 minutes. 4. Block these times in your calendar. At the start of the day, block out the rest of the time without meetings etc as Deep Work. People will understand you’re not easily contactable. 6. Tell your close team mates/manager that if they ever need you urgently they can contact via Signal/WhatsApp. If anyone needs you and really can’t wait a few hours then they’ll ask your manager and be able to get in touch. If you’re really worried about being uncontactable then put your phone number in your Slack bio. Using that, I went from being totally addicted to Slack to being able to be a productive worker again. Of course your mileage may vary.

paulryanrogers 4y ago
Have you tried Slack in a browser with notifications turned off? Possibly kept in a separate browser profile, so you can quickly open and close as needed? Or even just minimized until needed.
- Jare 4y ago
  Slack in browser with notifications off, and not at all on the phone (or disabled while not on call) is the only sane way. I will still go to check it quite a few times per day, but I would never survive if the thing is allowed to actively call my attention.
  - themanmaran 4y ago
    This is the way. I particularly like browser based apps. No concept of hiding out minimized when I close a tab. It's just gone until I decide to open it up again.
  - danuker 4y ago
    I still get distracted when the tab text or icon changes.
    - clmay 4y ago
      That's why you close the tab between visits :)
    - eropple 4y ago
      Pin the tab. No more tab title.
      - danuker 4y ago
        The tab icon has the notification dot that drives me crazy. I close the tab whenever I'm not using it.
- zztop44 4y ago
  Yeah this is definitely a good idea but I think personally I need the structure of having specific set times to check it, as opposed to it just always being an option whenever I encounter a boring or difficult task.
- bezier-curve 4y ago
  I tried this myself years ago and my previous boss complained because my status was not showing up as online. This was well before 2020 when remote work was not as common as it is now, so I'm still a little annoyed by that. Also open offices, they're the physical version of Slack.
- jfoster 4y ago
  It's incredible that this isn't the official recommended way to use slack in a large organization. It shouldn't even ask to issue notifications if there will be a ridiculous frequency of them. Organizations will eventually not purchase a service if that service destroys productivity.
tiffanyh 4y ago
This is also great advice in the event email (or anything else) that distracts you at work. Essentially, don't process in real-time. Process in batches a few times a day.
Aeolun 4y ago
I just tell everyone that if it’s not urgent enough to call me (on my phone), it can wait.
- hxugufjfjf 4y ago
  I apply this the reverse way too. Is this message I am sending important enough that I would call them to tell or ask the same thing?
  - Scarblac 4y ago
    The whole point of sending a message instead of calling them is the expectation that they will look at it and respond at a later time when it doesn't disturb them. If it were urgent, I'd call.
    - hxugufjfjf 4y ago
      We use email for that. Besides, if the intention is for Slack to be as async as email, then why do we need to have notifcations and plings and red badges?
      - Scarblac 4y ago
        Oh, that's basically stopped where I am. That's for official things that you need to be able to find back later, and for external people.
lowken 4y ago
I was going to give a flavor of the same advice. This is solid Slack guidance and if followed will work.
incanus77 4y ago
These, or something very similar, are essential to concentration. It's just not possible otherwise. The problem is this means nothing if the work culture is an expectation of always being available. So it's not entirely a technical problem (like many work problems).
- ad133 4y ago
  Even if it's not an always-available thing, how you can control Slack really depends on expectations - especially working remote. Do my colleagues and mentees really want to be blocked for two hours because they need a two-minute input from me? I have set Slack up so that certain things alert me, and most channels are just muted, but as others pointed out more fine-grain controls would be even better. Really just "only notifications for DMs for these people" would be a great QoL.
  - JCharante 4y ago
    On the other hand your organization could be built to be more async or if you do require input from people who can’t respond immediately, there is probably other stuff that can be worked on. 80% of my team is located in India while I’m in the US so none of our working hours overlap (meetings are scheduled early US time / late India time). Stuff can still get done without same-day responses.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
troebr 4y ago
Unrelated - did you go from management back to IC? Or a quieter management role.
- zztop44 4y ago
  I started a small agency and do consulting. So now I’m a guest in various different project channels across several client Slack teams + manage my own contractors etc. Much quieter :)
dangus 4y ago
This is pretty good advice. I'll add onto this: - Your company is idiotic in how they use Slack. With what I assume is a large company (1000+ channels) teams shouldn't have to respond to mentions with the possible exception of people directly on your team. Suggest/insist that the team implement a formal request intake system and actively discourage mentions. On my SRE team, we directly told other teams that Slack was not a method to request that work be done, and that all requests via Slack would be ignored. Our public channel was for asynchronous informational questions only (and please read the docs first). If your team has an on-call obligation, it shouldn't be implemented through Slack mentions, it should be through a defined incident management process with the appropriate policies and tools designed for that job. - Remember that you have a diagnosed condition that can be considered a disability and that your employer must by law make reasonable accommodations for it if you live in the USA. You should insist on being provided a method of work that accommodates you (and you're not even asking for anything that costs money). If you get pushback on this Slack situation, insist in writing that this is a disability issue and you are formally requesting a disability accommodation and include HR on your request. (It's true that HR is there to protect the company and not you, and in this situation that's exactly what they'll do: protect the company from an ADA lawsuit by accommodating your disability) To be quite honest I'm not even sure your ADHD is actually the problem here. Your company sounds like a nightmare.
m463 4y ago
you can also turn off notifications or tweak them by channel - you can turn off @here and @channel too.
danShumway 4y ago
This is all great advice (especially "uninstall it from your phone"). I'll add to this that if anyone involved with Slack is around here, Slack is in desperate need of more powerful/flexible muting controls -- ie, not just muting notifications from specific channels/DMs, but actually doing things like suppressing visual indicators in the sidebar, muting during certain time periods, etc... You want to go wild, it would be great to be able to fully turn off channels client-side during certain periods of the day so that new messages literally won't show up until it's turned back on. When I used Slack, if it was open and there was an indicator for a channel, I checked that channel. It didn't matter if I got a notification or not, the indicator itself was enough to distract me. I suspect there are a lot of people who have become less productive because of issues like this. A lot of the advice in this thread mirrors the above comment where people feel like they need to completely close the app and get it out of their face entirely in order to concentrate. In my opinion that's a weakness of the muting/UI options, that the only way to really truly tame notifications for deep work in many instances is to completely block the entire app. Edit: I consider both of these problems faced by OP (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34018044 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34018044, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34014517 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34014517) to be primarily UX problems that Slack could fix. Definitely the notification indicators -- putting a bright red dot on someone's screen is a distraction regardless of whether or not you also play a sound.
- kennyloginz 4y ago
  Just excellent!
- pmontra 4y ago
  If you use virtual desktops disable notifications and park it in a desktop of its own. Go there to check if there are any news. That works for me. Of course no slack on the phone.
- amatecha 4y ago
  I check every single channel with unread messages. Sometimes my best focus comes when the Slack app icon stops updating (due to some bug) and doesn't show unread message indicator anymore :) I miss messages, sometimes for hours, but then again I am able to focus without some nagging icon with its colored circle showing on it.
jjav 4y ago
These are solid advice. I've also had slack utterly destroy productivity, it is very unfortunate it has become popular. I don't have the slack app anywhere, I just access it via browser. I don't keep a tab open on it. I'll close the tab when I'm done and only reopen it via bookmark next time I need. I configure it to send me email if anyone mentions me. Of course, need to also make sure email notifications are all off. I'll check email about hourly or between meetings or completed tasks. In the absence of any email notifications from slack, I'll check it only at a few set times during that day. Times vary based on org culture but ideally not more than three times a day (morning, lunch, evening). If these technical solutions work for you, they can work great. But of course the worst part about slack is how it incentivizes this hyper-toxic culture of everyone monitoring chat all day long above all else. If your company culture has fallen into that pit and people get angry at you for not answering every bit of trivia within 30 seconds, I wish I knew of a solution other than quitting.
testfrequency 4y ago
I do all of these things, have ADHD, and I can confirm it’s helped me preserve my sanity the last few years. I’ve also come to terms with the fact that I most likely will never be that “hero” on my team who responds to a slack question or actions an ask right away - I just don’t have the mental bandwidth to be heads down and context switch 5 times an hour. I also only check email twice a day Anything you can do to be more defensive and purposeful with your time, the better
wojciii 4y ago
I don't have ADHD either and remember last time that I worked for a company that used that tool as something that drained me of energy with all the distractions. It's great when you want to do something and need to communicate something to your team (to read whenever they are ready) or write near real time with someone about a problem. Chat apps should, besides a dark mode have a mute mode and distraction free mode with a way to communicate for certain individuals or groups. Slack sucks and is probable the single source of most wasted developer hours besides open offices. :)
gingerlime 4y ago
Fantastic advice! one (optional, but highly recommended) to add: turn off your presence/away status. Just because you’re online does not automatically give permission to bug you. This however goes both ways. So make sure you do eventually respond to others. But there’s no expectation of replying right now.
- aussieshibe 4y ago
  I turned off presence in early 2020 and I've never looked back. Far fewer people ping me about things I don't care about now. I think expecting to get a reply instantly is a big part of why people bother you on Slack. Having to wait for a reply seems to cut out much of the noise.

paulryanrogers 4y ago

Have you tried Slack in a browser with notifications turned off? Possibly kept in a separate browser profile, so you can quickly open and close as needed? Or even just minimized until needed.

Jare 4y ago
Slack in browser with notifications off, and not at all on the phone (or disabled while not on call) is the only sane way. I will still go to check it quite a few times per day, but I would never survive if the thing is allowed to actively call my attention.
- themanmaran 4y ago
  This is the way. I particularly like browser based apps. No concept of hiding out minimized when I close a tab. It's just gone until I decide to open it up again.
- danuker 4y ago
  I still get distracted when the tab text or icon changes.
  - clmay 4y ago
    That's why you close the tab between visits :)
  - eropple 4y ago
    Pin the tab. No more tab title.
    - danuker 4y ago
      The tab icon has the notification dot that drives me crazy. I close the tab whenever I'm not using it.
zztop44 4y ago
Yeah this is definitely a good idea but I think personally I need the structure of having specific set times to check it, as opposed to it just always being an option whenever I encounter a boring or difficult task.
bezier-curve 4y ago
I tried this myself years ago and my previous boss complained because my status was not showing up as online. This was well before 2020 when remote work was not as common as it is now, so I'm still a little annoyed by that. Also open offices, they're the physical version of Slack.
jfoster 4y ago
It's incredible that this isn't the official recommended way to use slack in a large organization. It shouldn't even ask to issue notifications if there will be a ridiculous frequency of them. Organizations will eventually not purchase a service if that service destroys productivity.

tiffanyh 4y ago

This is also great advice in the event email (or anything else) that distracts you at work. Essentially, don't process in real-time. Process in batches a few times a day.

Aeolun 4y ago

I just tell everyone that if it’s not urgent enough to call me (on my phone), it can wait.

hxugufjfjf 4y ago
I apply this the reverse way too. Is this message I am sending important enough that I would call them to tell or ask the same thing?
- Scarblac 4y ago
  The whole point of sending a message instead of calling them is the expectation that they will look at it and respond at a later time when it doesn't disturb them. If it were urgent, I'd call.
  - hxugufjfjf 4y ago
    We use email for that. Besides, if the intention is for Slack to be as async as email, then why do we need to have notifcations and plings and red badges?
    - Scarblac 4y ago
      Oh, that's basically stopped where I am. That's for official things that you need to be able to find back later, and for external people.

lowken 4y ago

I was going to give a flavor of the same advice. This is solid Slack guidance and if followed will work.

incanus77 4y ago

These, or something very similar, are essential to concentration. It's just not possible otherwise. The problem is this means nothing if the work culture is an expectation of always being available. So it's not entirely a technical problem (like many work problems).

ad133 4y ago
Even if it's not an always-available thing, how you can control Slack really depends on expectations - especially working remote. Do my colleagues and mentees really want to be blocked for two hours because they need a two-minute input from me? I have set Slack up so that certain things alert me, and most channels are just muted, but as others pointed out more fine-grain controls would be even better. Really just "only notifications for DMs for these people" would be a great QoL.
- JCharante 4y ago
  On the other hand your organization could be built to be more async or if you do require input from people who can’t respond immediately, there is probably other stuff that can be worked on. 80% of my team is located in India while I’m in the US so none of our working hours overlap (meetings are scheduled early US time / late India time). Stuff can still get done without same-day responses.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

troebr 4y ago

Unrelated - did you go from management back to IC? Or a quieter management role.

zztop44 4y ago
I started a small agency and do consulting. So now I’m a guest in various different project channels across several client Slack teams + manage my own contractors etc. Much quieter :)

dangus 4y ago

This is pretty good advice. I'll add onto this: - Your company is idiotic in how they use Slack. With what I assume is a large company (1000+ channels) teams shouldn't have to respond to mentions with the possible exception of people directly on your team. Suggest/insist that the team implement a formal request intake system and actively discourage mentions. On my SRE team, we directly told other teams that Slack was not a method to request that work be done, and that all requests via Slack would be ignored. Our public channel was for asynchronous informational questions only (and please read the docs first). If your team has an on-call obligation, it shouldn't be implemented through Slack mentions, it should be through a defined incident management process with the appropriate policies and tools designed for that job. - Remember that you have a diagnosed condition that can be considered a disability and that your employer must by law make reasonable accommodations for it if you live in the USA. You should insist on being provided a method of work that accommodates you (and you're not even asking for anything that costs money). If you get pushback on this Slack situation, insist in writing that this is a disability issue and you are formally requesting a disability accommodation and include HR on your request. (It's true that HR is there to protect the company and not you, and in this situation that's exactly what they'll do: protect the company from an ADA lawsuit by accommodating your disability) To be quite honest I'm not even sure your ADHD is actually the problem here. Your company sounds like a nightmare.

m463 4y ago

you can also turn off notifications or tweak them by channel - you can turn off @here and @channel too.

danShumway 4y ago

This is all great advice (especially "uninstall it from your phone"). I'll add to this that if anyone involved with Slack is around here, Slack is in desperate need of more powerful/flexible muting controls -- ie, not just muting notifications from specific channels/DMs, but actually doing things like suppressing visual indicators in the sidebar, muting during certain time periods, etc... You want to go wild, it would be great to be able to fully turn off channels client-side during certain periods of the day so that new messages literally won't show up until it's turned back on. When I used Slack, if it was open and there was an indicator for a channel, I checked that channel. It didn't matter if I got a notification or not, the indicator itself was enough to distract me. I suspect there are a lot of people who have become less productive because of issues like this. A lot of the advice in this thread mirrors the above comment where people feel like they need to completely close the app and get it out of their face entirely in order to concentrate. In my opinion that's a weakness of the muting/UI options, that the only way to really truly tame notifications for deep work in many instances is to completely block the entire app. Edit: I consider both of these problems faced by OP (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34018044 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34018044, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34014517 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34014517) to be primarily UX problems that Slack could fix. Definitely the notification indicators -- putting a bright red dot on someone's screen is a distraction regardless of whether or not you also play a sound.

kennyloginz 4y ago
Just excellent!
pmontra 4y ago
If you use virtual desktops disable notifications and park it in a desktop of its own. Go there to check if there are any news. That works for me. Of course no slack on the phone.
amatecha 4y ago
I check every single channel with unread messages. Sometimes my best focus comes when the Slack app icon stops updating (due to some bug) and doesn't show unread message indicator anymore :) I miss messages, sometimes for hours, but then again I am able to focus without some nagging icon with its colored circle showing on it.

jjav 4y ago

These are solid advice. I've also had slack utterly destroy productivity, it is very unfortunate it has become popular. I don't have the slack app anywhere, I just access it via browser. I don't keep a tab open on it. I'll close the tab when I'm done and only reopen it via bookmark next time I need. I configure it to send me email if anyone mentions me. Of course, need to also make sure email notifications are all off. I'll check email about hourly or between meetings or completed tasks. In the absence of any email notifications from slack, I'll check it only at a few set times during that day. Times vary based on org culture but ideally not more than three times a day (morning, lunch, evening). If these technical solutions work for you, they can work great. But of course the worst part about slack is how it incentivizes this hyper-toxic culture of everyone monitoring chat all day long above all else. If your company culture has fallen into that pit and people get angry at you for not answering every bit of trivia within 30 seconds, I wish I knew of a solution other than quitting.

testfrequency 4y ago

I do all of these things, have ADHD, and I can confirm it’s helped me preserve my sanity the last few years. I’ve also come to terms with the fact that I most likely will never be that “hero” on my team who responds to a slack question or actions an ask right away - I just don’t have the mental bandwidth to be heads down and context switch 5 times an hour. I also only check email twice a day Anything you can do to be more defensive and purposeful with your time, the better

wojciii 4y ago

I don't have ADHD either and remember last time that I worked for a company that used that tool as something that drained me of energy with all the distractions. It's great when you want to do something and need to communicate something to your team (to read whenever they are ready) or write near real time with someone about a problem. Chat apps should, besides a dark mode have a mute mode and distraction free mode with a way to communicate for certain individuals or groups. Slack sucks and is probable the single source of most wasted developer hours besides open offices. :)

gingerlime 4y ago

Fantastic advice! one (optional, but highly recommended) to add: turn off your presence/away status. Just because you’re online does not automatically give permission to bug you. This however goes both ways. So make sure you do eventually respond to others. But there’s no expectation of replying right now.

aussieshibe 4y ago
I turned off presence in early 2020 and I've never looked back. Far fewer people ping me about things I don't care about now. I think expecting to get a reply instantly is a big part of why people bother you on Slack. Having to wait for a reply seems to cut out much of the noise.