Slack Is Not Where 'Deep Work' Happens • Hacker News Board

Re: Slack Is Not Where 'Deep Work' Happens

#71

Post by snarf21 » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 1:44 PM UTC

nottorp wrote: post #63

I don't understand. Why do you allow Slack to interrupt you? Turn off all notifications except the unread messages count badge and check it when it overflows. Easy as ABC. I run like 6 different messaging platforms, but none is allowed to interrupt me. If you can't restrain yourself from checking messages constantly, you have a problem not the medium.

You are absolutely correct. The real issue is a cultural one not one based on tools. At some companies, employees expect 10 second response times to all questions. This is so that they can be more efficient. But that efficiency comes at the cost of the answerer's efficiency. If all people just have Slack "off" all day, doesn't that largely defeat the purpose? Why not just use something else? (Not making a judgment on whether Slack is good or bad, it is what it is)

Re: Slack Is Not Where 'Deep Work' Happens

#72

Post by robbiep » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 1:48 PM UTC

We have a remote team and have recently implemented a rule/trial of no slack after 10am until 4pm - so everyone can organise, everyone has enough work to do during their 6 hrs to continue if the need to ask a question then have the afternoon to answer questions/move forward on any blockers from their ‘time out’

Early days but seems to be improving ‘distractability’

Re: Slack Is Not Where 'Deep Work' Happens

#73

Post by icedchai » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 1:49 PM UTC

Slack is fine if you turn off essentially all notifications. The same is true of email.

Any sort of notification / alert is disruptive to deep (real) work. If it's urgent, send me a text. Or, god forbid, a phone call.

Re: Slack Is Not Where 'Deep Work' Happens

#74

Post by raverbashing » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 1:50 PM UTC

protonimitate wrote: post #28

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 m…

> 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.

This a million times

Bonus points, you don't annoy other people in the office with your impromptu meeting next to someone that has nothing to do with it

Re: Slack Is Not Where 'Deep Work' Happens

#75

Post by golergka » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 1:50 PM UTC

neilv wrote: post #47

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…

Ugh. I have an anecdote in which I was brought in by a great niche technical contracting firm, as a developer who was also supposed to repair a client relationship, after a previous developer quit. I learned that the problem on client site was not quite what was expected (they already knew the client's manager didn't want contractors). It turned out that a significant part the problem on the ground was simply that th…

So, how did that contracting situation end? Did the manager correct his behaviour?

Re: Slack Is Not Where 'Deep Work' Happens

#76

Post by matchbok » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 1:55 PM UTC

Experiment for slack lovers: Start talking about something in a channel with ~20 people. Have another use try to start another conversation in the same channel. This is a common occurrence. The other users either have to spam the channel or wait until your topic is complete, which could never be!

What happens? Garbage. Chat is not how work gets done. Or how knowledge is transferred and, most importantly, retained.

Re: Slack Is Not Where 'Deep Work' Happens

#77

Post by JoeAltmaier » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 1:55 PM UTC

protonimitate wrote: post #28

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 m…

I use Sococo for this. It has an expanded interface to increase awareness of group activity - who's talking with whom, has the meeting started, is anybody still in the office.

Re: Slack Is Not Where 'Deep Work' Happens

#78

Post by delinka » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 1:56 PM UTC

robbiep wrote: post #72

We have a remote team and have recently implemented a rule/trial of no slack after 10am until 4pm - so everyone can organise, everyone has enough work to do during their 6 hrs to continue if the need to ask a question then have the afternoon to answer questions/move forward on any blockers from their ‘time out’ Early days but seems to be improving ‘distractability’

Now to contend with "well, can't get an answer so I'm blocked until 4pm!" In the corporate environment I'm in, this is a fabulous excuse used by many teams from around the world. Works for email as well.

Re: Slack Is Not Where 'Deep Work' Happens

#79

Post by mindcrime » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 1:56 PM UTC

I'm not a fan of Slack in particular just because it's a closed-source, proprietary, walled-garden. But that aside, while it is true that "Chat / IM apps are not where 'deep work' happens", that doesn't mean that chat / IM isn't valuable. You just have to recognize it for what it is, and figure out how to tap into the value that it represents.

If that means turning it all off at certain times to support "deep work" then so be it. The question, in my mind, is how to find the optimal balance between synchronous, interrupt-driven communication and asynchronous communication. I'm not sure anybody has figured out the perfect answer for that yet.

Re: Slack Is Not Where 'Deep Work' Happens

#80

Post by matchbok » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 1:57 PM UTC

jackpeterfletch wrote: post #45

When I read these kind of pieces I wonder if people know that just because your company has Slack, that doesn't mean they expect you to read everything in it. Company wide/support channels, your basically at liberty to completely ignore these. Some people crack the odd joke in here, camaraderie in a team is nice, but don't feel its compulsory. I mute them, though they're are great places to be able to search! The cha…

But, the whole "checking in on a channel" thing is exactly the problem. It creates a nonsense or a "missing out" feeling for the team. It is too synchronous.