Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: I have diagnosed ADHD and cannot work with Slack anymore – advice?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 392 posts

Re: Ask HN: I have diagnosed ADHD and cannot work with Slack anymore – advice?

#61

Post by wobbly_bush »

smileybarry wrote: post #45

I tweak my Slack pretty heavily to suit my ADHD but 90% of it is: turn off (desktop) notifications entirely. Not "sometimes", all of it. (I just set Windows to DND so I still get Slack's red dot) I notice the red dot as soon as it appears anyway, but the lack of bigger visuals & audio means if I'm actually focused (and don't notice the red dot) I don't get yanked out of it. The other 10% is: * Mute unnecessary channe…

I don't have ADHD and yet I still do all of this. Removing all notification dots/numbers, no previews, muting channels, suppressing mentions in some channels, separating channels into "infrequent"/"team"/"org" sections and keeping some collapsed (looking at them once a day). On mobile removing notification sound, preview and also removing notification from lock screen (only allowing in notification center).

You can also set your status to permanent "responses will be delayed". No one has the right to my attention within a few seconds (except when oncall). I use slack the way it makes me productive.

Re: Ask HN: I have diagnosed ADHD and cannot work with Slack anymore – advice?

#64

Post by josephd79 »

Same diagnosis and exp here. Welcome to notification hell. Problem is all of these bs communication apps are treated as synchronous instead of asynchronous and managers think it helps when in reality it causes distractions, extra stress and loss of productivity.

1000 slack channels. Lol wtf.

Here’s what i do and it’s helped. I turned them ALL off. Banners, badges, bells. All of it. I check on my terms.

Re: Ask HN: I have diagnosed ADHD and cannot work with Slack anymore – advice?

#65

Post by MarcelOlsz »

KerrAvon wrote: post #49
Kuinox wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you manage to not click on the slack icon despite having seen the red dot ? When I see the notification icon, I won't be able to focus on something else until I cleared the notification.

Turn off icon badging as well. No notifications really means _no_ notifications. This is the way.

But then there's the anxiety of waiting like 4 hours, opening it, and seeing a bunch of critical messages you weren't around for. I need either a robot that will gently tap me on the shoulder and quietly tell me to check my notifications, or somehow relay the badge to a collar on my dog so he can bark at me. The badge is the worst. The sounds are the worst. At this point I rather just have a landline people can call me on with a voice machine.

Re: Ask HN: I have diagnosed ADHD and cannot work with Slack anymore – advice?

#66

Post by tomxor »

Have you considered that you might just have a Slack problem? honestly.

Labels can be dangerous and polarising - individual psychology and behaviour fall on a nuanced multidimensional spectrum, and I think these labels target such a large range and severity of behaviour that they have a high risk of conflating symptoms with completely different causes. Combined with misaligned intensives to sell drugs, I'm highly sceptical of the majority of diagnoses.

I was diagnosed with dyslexia at a young age, but it turns out I was just a stubborn child who disliked accepting the seeming illogic of the written English language where other kids are usually less questioning and do what they are told, compared to truly? or "more" dyslexic people who genuinely struggle with placing letters in the correct order rather than merely bothering to remember them. This is the danger of diagnosing what is supposed to be a neurological disorder through relatively subtle behavioural symptoms.

It's completely possible to exhibit "ADHD" symptoms from an unhealthy work life... WFH and covid has caused instant messaging like Slack to take centre stage in all communication, and that has definitely messed with a lot of people's ability to focus on their work, myself included. I've had to take some quite extreme measures, making sure it's completely closed between certain times (not in away mode, but actually not loaded, unreachable). If there is an emergency, people have your phone number, sometimes you need time to yourself and that's when people can wait, unless it's an emergency.

Post reply on HN