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

Re: Slack Is Not Where 'Deep Work' Happens

#11

Post by dvfjsdhgfv » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 11:54 AM UTC

Hoasi wrote: post #10

> Slack Is Not Where 'Deep Work' Happens Sure, but that's not the point, it is not even where "work" happens. Slack can be useful as a communication tool. There is a time for work and a time for communication. Just as you don't answer the phone when you want to do serious work. Likewise, meetings are a waste of time, except when meeting face to face is useful. Communication is super important. After all, without comm…

I keep slack open for 20 minutes a day max, mostly in breaks between real work. I don't feel like I miss much.

Re: Slack Is Not Where 'Deep Work' Happens

#12

Post by te_chris » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 11:55 AM UTC

When I joined the startup I work at currently I had one key criteria: no Slack. We first tried Zulip, but the interface is a mess and everyone hated it. We've since switched to Twist and it is brilliant. The threaded model is genuinely useful for ongoing discussions, and then group chat for small messages. But the key effect is this: by being simple and utilitarian, people only use it for utility. No endless gif streams, no all day shit chat. It's great.

Messaging is genuinely useful for a productive org, Slack doesn't event come close to providing this. As far as a better interface for IRC goes, it's good for that, the various industry groups I'm in are good, but for work? It's a tire fire.

Re: Slack Is Not Where 'Deep Work' Happens

#13

Post by king_magic » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 11:55 AM UTC

Slack/Teams/etc. are the bane of my work existence. I will only open them when I absolutely need to. The distraction is too high and the utility is too low for it to be worth using.

Re: Slack Is Not Where 'Deep Work' Happens

#14

Post by te_chris » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 11:58 AM UTC

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.

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

Re: Slack Is Not Where 'Deep Work' Happens

#15

Post by vishnu_ks » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 11:59 AM UTC

rohtul wrote: post #3

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

Try Zulip. All meetings have an agenda!

https://imgur.com/UMBuOuh

Long Version: In Zulip, each and every conversation in a channel has a topic. So for catching up one don't have to go through all messages in a channel. Instead just go through the topic names and open the topics only you are interested in catching up. Since each conversation can have a topic you can reply back to conversations even after days as well as can have multiple productive conversations in one channel at same time!

https://zulipchat.com/why-zulip/

Re: Slack Is Not Where 'Deep Work' Happens

#16

Post by thecatspaw » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 12:06 PM UTC

vishnu_ks wrote: post #15

rohtul wrote: post #3

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

Try Zulip. All meetings have an agenda! https://imgur.com/UMBuOuh Long Version: In Zulip, each and every conversation in a channel has a topic. So for catching up one don't have to go through all messages in a channel. Instead just go through the topic names and open the topics only you are interested in catching up. Since each conversation can have a topic you can reply back to conversations even after days as well…

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.

Re: Slack Is Not Where 'Deep Work' Happens

#17

Post by w8rbt » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 12:08 PM UTC

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

Re: Slack Is Not Where 'Deep Work' Happens

#18

Post by rjdagost » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 12:11 PM UTC

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 amounts of distractions and failed concentration. I'm sure "I'm doing it wrong", but this has been my experience with Slack.

Re: Slack Is Not Where 'Deep Work' Happens

#19

Post by vishnu_ks » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 12:14 PM UTC

thecatspaw wrote: post #16

vishnu_ks wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try Zulip. All meetings have an agenda! https://imgur.com/UMBuOuh Long Version: In Zulip, each and every conversation in a channel has a topic. So for catching up one don't have to go through all messages in a channel. Instead just go through the topic names and open the topics only you are interested in catching up. Since each conversation can have a topic you can reply back to conversations even after days as well…

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 :)

Re: Slack Is Not Where 'Deep Work' Happens

#20

Post by johnvaluk » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 12:20 PM UTC

thecatspaw wrote: post #16

vishnu_ks wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try Zulip. All meetings have an agenda! https://imgur.com/UMBuOuh Long Version: In Zulip, each and every conversation in a channel has a topic. So for catching up one don't have to go through all messages in a channel. Instead just go through the topic names and open the topics only you are interested in catching up. Since each conversation can have a topic you can reply back to conversations even after days as well…

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.

We use Slack in a similar manner and the signal to noise ratio is extremely high. Some of our channels are key components of workflows. It's extremely easy to seek help or share information like links or code snippets. We're also very responsive, since it's always running on our workstations, laptops and phones. We'd probably frown on anyone treating it like a social media platform, though we do use it to let off steam once in a while.