Mute all the channels. Ignore messages that don't matter. Configure it to notify you if someone mentions "lunch". Done. Coworkers aren't your friends. Don't have FOMO on their Slack postings.
Yup. +1.
How Slack hooks users through artificial urgency
31–40 of 62 posts
Re: How Slack hooks users through artificial urgency
#32Mute all the channels. Ignore messages that don't matter. Configure it to notify you if someone mentions "lunch". Done. Coworkers aren't your friends. Don't have FOMO on their Slack postings.
Does mute prevent notifications from @here?
Kind of. I won't get a mobile notification or the little red dot in my macOS dock, but it will still show a little red thing next to the channel name in Slack. I don't know if there's a way to get rid of that.
Re: How Slack hooks users through artificial urgency
#33When does a conversation stop being about a tool or a platform and become about how it's used? Slack is not perfectly opinionated. It does not enforce a single way of working on everyone that uses it. One of the weakest areas I have found on HN has been discussion around organizations and how they function. New tools, like Slack, open new doors, but they are not silver bullets. Switching to Slack doesn't solve inhere…
OP here. I think the problem is that when tools like Slack are engineered in such a way as to make people dependent on their product, it's unfair to expect users to accept all the responsibility of mitigating against that. Software companies aren't using organizational productivity as a benchmark for their success, just usage statistics. So no, Slack doesn't enforce a single way of working, but it is engineered to co…
> I think the problem is that when tools like Slack are engineered in such a way as to make people dependent on their product, it's unfair to expect users to accept all the responsibility of mitigating against that.
You write this as if it's a given. I never said anything about mitigating against dependency... I'm talking about mitigating against a dysfunctional organization, which are far more common than I think most people realize, or (especially) care to admit.
> Software companies aren't using organizational productivity as a benchmark for their success, just usage statistics.
Again, I'll accept that software companies care about the number of active users even over productivity, but it's not a given that Slack cares (at all) about how much time I actually spend on Slack (as opposed to, for example, Facebook).
> So no, Slack doesn't enforce a single way of working, but it is engineered to consume as much of people's time as possible, for better or worse.
If you show me that Slack is trying to monopolize people's time (something that, quite honestly, would be bad for its business and product) then we can talk about how much responsibility a user has to mitigate a product's designed purpose. Otherwise, I'm speaking about how much accountability a user is willing to assign to his or her organization because, quite frequently, people are unwilling to point out things they find wrong within an organization.
> Jason Fried wrote his in his (much more comprehensive) post about group chat pros/cons:
I find a lot wrong with Jason Fried's writing in general, and this post isn't different. That quote specifically falls into one of his common issues, oversimplification to the point of absurdity.
If a design leads to stress it's bad design? Well what if communicating one-on-one with your boss about things you're accountable for stresses you out (something that is fairly common)? And since Slack is designed to make that pretty easy, is it Slack's fault you're stressed? Is Slack poorly designed because you are? No. That's an organizational issue.
Re: How Slack hooks users through artificial urgency
#34I never really understood the hype around Slack. I keep reading articles like this one, I constantly hear people saying "zomg we transitioned to Slack and are having such an awesome time, it's way better then [insert messaging app]!". I'm probably getting old, but I've been using it for about 3-4 years now (because work) and it seems just like a polished IRC client tied to a proprietary service to me.
Slack managed to get a whole new demographic of people that have never heard of IRC to use IRC. That seems fairly hype-worthy.
The only problem is that it's not IRC, it's another closed source data gathering operation.
Re: How Slack hooks users through artificial urgency
#35I'm very distractible, and I get on fine with Slack. I genuinely feel work is easier with it, you just have to aggressively filter the attention-grabbing. My strategy is: notifications for mentions and ultra-important channels only, mute any channel I don't want to definitely read all of (joining a channel and immediately muting is common for me), disable the unread dot completely for non-primary teams, and unsubscri…
OP here. Iit's telling that so many people are commenting in this thread about how Slack isn't that bad because you can customize it to be less attention-grabbing. The fact remains that Slack is engineered to be attention-grabbing out of the box. Sure you can tweak it to make it less shouty, but Slack is still a product that is sold for money by a company. It's not in their interests to make it align with your existi…
I think it depends on the company. I don't find it attention grabbing at all and I have it running on the default settings.
I certainly find it much easier to follow than massive chain emails.
Re: How Slack hooks users through artificial urgency
#36While I agree with this article in general, I do believe the distractiveness of Slack can be mitigated by disabling notifications on certain channels while keeping them open on others.
It the same reason I close email and chat apps during periods of work to get stuff done.
You have to create and control your own context switches. I also disable email notifications on my cell. This let’s me check email outside of work but doesn’t force it into my view every moment.
Re: How Slack hooks users through artificial urgency
#37When does a conversation stop being about a tool or a platform and become about how it's used? Slack is not perfectly opinionated. It does not enforce a single way of working on everyone that uses it. One of the weakest areas I have found on HN has been discussion around organizations and how they function. New tools, like Slack, open new doors, but they are not silver bullets. Switching to Slack doesn't solve inhere…
OP here. I think the problem is that when tools like Slack are engineered in such a way as to make people dependent on their product, it's unfair to expect users to accept all the responsibility of mitigating against that. Software companies aren't using organizational productivity as a benchmark for their success, just usage statistics. So no, Slack doesn't enforce a single way of working, but it is engineered to co…
> I think the problem is that when tools like Slack are engineered in such a way as to make people dependent on their product
It's a chat client. It's an addictive medium. It sounds to me like you're shooting the messenger.
Skype, Hangouts, or any IM client wants your attention. Slack is just a better version of all the other IM clients I've used (for work).
If you don't want to be disturbed you close Slack.
I suspect that if you've got problems with Slack, it means that there's a problem in the culture of where you work.
Where I work, individual @ mentions are barely used, maybe 0-5 per day. But there's nothing that's written in stone, or ever been discussed, it's just that colleagues respect each other's focus. Then the rest is less important that all can be ignored unless you're not concentrating on something.
Re: How Slack hooks users through artificial urgency
#38I think personal comms + general channel announcements are OK. Just close slack and when you come back check any specific communications for you asynchronously, or if you want to catch up on "what's been up" you can browse message threads. On the other hand @here/@channel messages are terrible! Now these are terrible because they confuse the "broadcast" nature messages with personal messages.
Then surely agree with the people at your work to never use @channel. It's basically the same as 'Reply All', it's a waste of everyone's time.
Re: How Slack hooks users through artificial urgency
#39Mute all the channels. Ignore messages that don't matter. Configure it to notify you if someone mentions "lunch". Done. Coworkers aren't your friends. Don't have FOMO on their Slack postings.
Sorry, totally off topic but I can't help but be reminded of this [0]:
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead. Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves, Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now; put out every one, Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun, Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods; For nothing now can ever come to any good.
W.H. Auden
Re: How Slack hooks users through artificial urgency
#40Slack for work mostly sucks. It's OK for communities where urgency is obviously not there -- basically as an alternative IRC. I have worked at a couple companies that used IRC. They beauty of IRC is no offline notifications (unless you're using a cloud service, I guess) -- so it was only used during the workday. I'm not sure if this is the case with other teams, but I've been noticing my team has been using public ch…
A tool is only as useful as the one who wields it. The problem with not using public channels is not a slack problem, it is a cultural problem.