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Slack Is Not Where 'Deep Work' Happens

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Re: Slack Is Not Where 'Deep Work' Happens

#21

Post by amichal »

codingdave wrote: post #9
jayjaybinks wrote: post #2

This is exactly why we switched to Twist. Slack is fun but toxic. Working in an open office is bad enough but at least you can use noise canceling headphones. No such remedy for Slack.

This is a cultural problem. You can close Slack. You can check it every couple hours and catch up. You can turn off notifications. If your management has problems with this, that is a problem with their culture, not the tool. We have channels where discussions will spread over multiple days because there simply is no expectation that Slack is real-time.

Indeed. There are 80+ channels in my workplace of 20 people. Most people are subscribed to just a few relevant to their current projects and there is zero expectation that a non direct message will be read by subscribers until they are next focused on the project. It serves a semi public record of what’s going on and a place for questions, notifications of important updates. It makes it easier for me to focus on work not harder since I can drop out for hours or days and trust that I can come back and be well informed.

Re: Slack Is Not Where 'Deep Work' Happens

#22

Post by fs2 »

rjdagost wrote: post #18

For myself, Slack is such a time waster that I'm at the point where I only check on it periodically. I tell coworkers that if there's an emergency that needs to be tended to right away, just text, call, or talk to me in person. If there's something that can wait, email is better. After 2+ years of using Slack on several different teams, I have yet to see any enhanced group communications. I do however see massive amo…

My experience exactly. The most common observation with Slack is how people praise it as the next big thing in productivity. But this is always during the honeymoon phase, after a few months of working with Slack it usually quickly wears off.

Re: Slack Is Not Where 'Deep Work' Happens

#23

Post by thecatspaw »

vishnu_ks wrote: post #19
thecatspaw wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or continue using slack, but correctly. We dont have offtopic in ours. We do have a #random chat, but its very infrequently used. Instead of zulips revolutionary tags, just use the slack threads. Zulip wont save you if you're drowning in Slack messages.

Zulip does save you from drowning in messages! Instead of going through all the messages, one just have to go through Topics and consume messages only from topics they are interested in. This is so much efficient compared to a chat system without topics :)

Slack also has channels.

Re: Slack Is Not Where 'Deep Work' Happens

#24

Post by shubhamjain »

w8rbt wrote: post #17

Reminds me of this Knuth quote, "Email is a wonderful thing for people whose role in life is to be on top of things. But not for me; my role is to be on the bottom of things." Source: https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/email.html

To me, this can be taken as an argument against the post's premise. Could there be any e-communication tool more asynchronous than email? (Except for notifications, which you can turn off). I am not blaming Knuth, he must really dislike distraction of any sort.

However, having lived pre- and post-Slack period, I can't say that Slack has worsened the situation. When there wasn't Slack, I had people coming to my desk to ask the question (vastly more distracting). We had meetings for tiny questions and they stretched far too long. The culture of company that is far more responsible than any single tool.

Re: Slack Is Not Where 'Deep Work' Happens

#25

Post by viraptor »

te_chris wrote: post #14
codingdave wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a cultural problem. You can close Slack. You can check it every couple hours and catch up. You can turn off notifications. If your management has problems with this, that is a problem with their culture, not the tool. We have channels where discussions will spread over multiple days because there simply is no expectation that Slack is real-time.

Nah, it's just a bad product that demands too much attention by design.

What do you mean by "demands"? You can react to a notification or not. You can reduce the notifications. Slack itself doesn't force you to do anything.

Re: Slack Is Not Where 'Deep Work' Happens

#26

Post by geekamongus »

I have to minimize Slack throughout the day in order to get work done, and I try to only pay attention to it when I hear the alert noise when someone @'s me, which unfortunately I mis-hear all the time.

My brain thinks it hears that alert noise beneath the music I have playing, or if I go to the other room it thinks it hears it from afar, so I run back to my desk to see if someone is messaging me.

I hate that I have been conditioned this way, but I don't foresee it changing in my workplace any time soon. Some people I work with are on Slack all day chatting, and I really question if they are ever doing anything else.

Re: Slack Is Not Where 'Deep Work' Happens

#27

Post by goguy »

rohtul wrote: post #3

“Group chat is like being in an all-day meeting with random participants and no agenda.” That. So true.

Yup, I just don't participate. I miss out on some things but it's worth it for avoiding the distraction IMO. If anyone needs me they can email, Skype or god forbid speak to me in person.

Re: Slack Is Not Where 'Deep Work' Happens

#28

Post by protonimitate »

I'll play devils advocate.

I like Slack, and having a group communication tool has only increased my productivity.

How? - Having a place to easily search for issues others have had in the past. Sure, you can search emails or ask the same questions, but it's nice to search and find answers from other peoples conversations. - Integration for production alerting, customer feedback, and deployment pipelines. Instead of manually digging through several different web UIs or using a bunch of different CLIs, I can just take a look at the corresponding channel. - Notifications _can be_ non-distracting. Being the correct channels, snoozing alerts, or just exiting slack when you need the deep focus headspace, is easy.

I specifically don't want to be called/texted/interrupted in person unless it's something severely important. 90% of the time its not. I would much rather ignore a slack notification than answer a meaningless phonecall, or politely tell someone to bug off in person.

I will say, the "always on" culture is hard to face when Slack/group messaging is a companies main point of communication. Luckily, I've only ever been in places where its been understood that you are only expected to be responsive during your work day.

But, I think the negative effects of the cost of distraction by slack are overblown. There are endless ways to be distracted these days, and Slack is not the worst thing out there. You can always just exit the program.

Re: Slack Is Not Where 'Deep Work' Happens

#29

Post by jorisw »

geekamongus wrote: post #26

I have to minimize Slack throughout the day in order to get work done, and I try to only pay attention to it when I hear the alert noise when someone @'s me, which unfortunately I mis-hear all the time. My brain thinks it hears that alert noise beneath the music I have playing, or if I go to the other room it thinks it hears it from afar, so I run back to my desk to see if someone is messaging me. I hate that I have…

Can't you disable the sound, so that you know that when you think you hear it, it's not meant for you?
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