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Our Week Without Slack

motherboard.vice.com

51–60 of 77 posts

Re: Our Week Without Slack

#51
post #47

They claim Slack is distracting while the picture at the top of the article is a bunch of people working in cramped quarters in an open office. I think they have bigger fish to fry here. Slack has a mute button. All that requires is self control. You can't mute coworkers sitting too close to you. Even with headphones (which notice half the people in the photo are wearing) you can only somewhat filter out the distract…

To be fair, Vice is an online magazine, not a programming firm. I can absolutely imagine that group conversations are more important in such an environment.

Yeah because it's not as if writing high quality articles takes focus or anything. ;)

Re: Our Week Without Slack

#52

They claim Slack is distracting while the picture at the top of the article is a bunch of people working in cramped quarters in an open office. I think they have bigger fish to fry here. Slack has a mute button. All that requires is self control. You can't mute coworkers sitting too close to you. Even with headphones (which notice half the people in the photo are wearing) you can only somewhat filter out the distract…

You can't mute your boss, and they're the only messages anyone pays attention to. You can only ignore support for 20 minutes max before your boss starts typing your handle.

Re: Our Week Without Slack

#53
post #49

They claim Slack is distracting while the picture at the top of the article is a bunch of people working in cramped quarters in an open office. I think they have bigger fish to fry here. Slack has a mute button. All that requires is self control. You can't mute coworkers sitting too close to you. Even with headphones (which notice half the people in the photo are wearing) you can only somewhat filter out the distract…

the coworkers' noise doesn't cause the dopamine spikes like the IM does and thus doesn't creates addiction. The guys should be applauded for having been able to recognize the problem and taking control [or at least making serious attempt to] over their dopamine addiction. Many comments here are equivalent to "drink responsibly". Well, one can do it if one can ... otherwise cutting it off is a pretty sensible thing to…

"Drink responsibly" isn't a great analogy. Drinking adds no tangible utility to anything significant. People do it because it's fun, not because it improves the quality of their work.

Group chat adds tangible value to work when used responsibly. You can create a cultural requirement that minimizes interruptions by consigning random chit chat or idle questions to IMs that can be safely ignored for a time by muting notifications.

When, "hey which internal CMS has this thing I need?" is an IM I can safely mute when I need to focus instead of a productivity-destroying shoulder tap, that is significant.

If they were experiencing a dopamine addiction because they couldn't learn how to properly contextualize and ignore notifications when they needed to be in the zone, that's on them, not the tool.

Re: Our Week Without Slack

#54

They claim Slack is distracting while the picture at the top of the article is a bunch of people working in cramped quarters in an open office. I think they have bigger fish to fry here. Slack has a mute button. All that requires is self control. You can't mute coworkers sitting too close to you. Even with headphones (which notice half the people in the photo are wearing) you can only somewhat filter out the distract…

You can't mute your boss, and they're the only messages anyone pays attention to. You can only ignore support for 20 minutes max before your boss starts typing your handle.

Only in terrible office cultures. If everything is urgent, then nothing is urgent. Good office cultures clearly delineate between what needs a person's urgent attention and what can wait for 20 minutes while someone wraps up something they're doing.

Re: Our Week Without Slack

#55

They claim Slack is distracting while the picture at the top of the article is a bunch of people working in cramped quarters in an open office. I think they have bigger fish to fry here. Slack has a mute button. All that requires is self control. You can't mute coworkers sitting too close to you. Even with headphones (which notice half the people in the photo are wearing) you can only somewhat filter out the distract…

I agree that they have other issues beyond Slack with respect to productivity, but playing Devil's Advocate, muting Slack has the downside of just creating a large backlog of missed messages, and if the culture is to be dependent on it, mute only shifts distractions to later instead of eliminating them. This is worse if the culture holds impromptu Slack meetings that you can easily miss by being on mute. In that case…

Firstly, impromptu is bad. Work requires focus, not "oh look a squirrel!" People learn delayed gratification in life. The same goes for the urgency of someone in your org randomly deciding everyone needs to talk about my random thoughts right fricking now.

Secondly, messages piling up is a feature, not a bug. You engage when you need a mental break and you're in an engagement mood. If other people are in that mood at the same time, great. If not, then if you force them to engage with you anyway you are harming their productivity. People need to learn this. People get in the zone at different times and this needs to be respected.

Re: Our Week Without Slack

#56

They claim Slack is distracting while the picture at the top of the article is a bunch of people working in cramped quarters in an open office. I think they have bigger fish to fry here. Slack has a mute button. All that requires is self control. You can't mute coworkers sitting too close to you. Even with headphones (which notice half the people in the photo are wearing) you can only somewhat filter out the distract…

>Slack has a mute button.

I mute every single channel I'm in (30+) and just check Slack once at the beginning of the day and once at the end of the day. I still get notifications for @messages and respond if necessary.

Re: Our Week Without Slack

#57

They claim Slack is distracting while the picture at the top of the article is a bunch of people working in cramped quarters in an open office. I think they have bigger fish to fry here. Slack has a mute button. All that requires is self control. You can't mute coworkers sitting too close to you. Even with headphones (which notice half the people in the photo are wearing) you can only somewhat filter out the distract…

I find the Slack mute (away) doesn't quite do what I want. There is still a visual display in the icon tray that indicates that conversation is going on. Short of closing out of Slack entirely there doesn't appear to be a way to make it remove all auditory and visual notifications that new messages are coming in.

I would love to have more control over what kinds of auditory and visual notifications can appear when away or not away and be able to specify what can trigger them. Which right now slack is very limiting on those kinds of settings.

Re: Our Week Without Slack

#58
post #57

They claim Slack is distracting while the picture at the top of the article is a bunch of people working in cramped quarters in an open office. I think they have bigger fish to fry here. Slack has a mute button. All that requires is self control. You can't mute coworkers sitting too close to you. Even with headphones (which notice half the people in the photo are wearing) you can only somewhat filter out the distract…

I find the Slack mute (away) doesn't quite do what I want. There is still a visual display in the icon tray that indicates that conversation is going on. Short of closing out of Slack entirely there doesn't appear to be a way to make it remove all auditory and visual notifications that new messages are coming in. I would love to have more control over what kinds of auditory and visual notifications can appear when aw…

Personally I hide the icon as well. It's entirely possible for me to not know when there is chat activity unless and until I want to.

Re: Our Week Without Slack

#59
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the coworkers' noise doesn't cause the dopamine spikes like the IM does and thus doesn't creates addiction. The guys should be applauded for having been able to recognize the problem and taking control [or at least making serious attempt to] over their dopamine addiction. Many comments here are equivalent to "drink responsibly". Well, one can do it if one can ... otherwise cutting it off is a pretty sensible thing to…

"Drink responsibly" isn't a great analogy. Drinking adds no tangible utility to anything significant. People do it because it's fun, not because it improves the quality of their work. Group chat adds tangible value to work when used responsibly. You can create a cultural requirement that minimizes interruptions by consigning random chit chat or idle questions to IMs that can be safely ignored for a time by muting not…

>Drinking adds no tangible utility to anything significant. People do it because it's fun, not because it improves the quality of their work.

many creative people worked or were inspired "under influence" of various stuff causing addiction.

>Group chat adds tangible value to work when used responsibly.

some claim so. Well, for example cigarettes or a glass of wine help too - by calming down. Wine is also great for heart and blood vessels. And meth (ADHD drugs) is very useful for increasing concentration and productivity even for healthy people. They give it to [healthy] pilots for example.

>If they were experiencing a dopamine addiction because they couldn't learn how to properly contextualize and ignore notifications when they needed to be in the zone, that's on them, not the tool.

Blame (internal and external) is a typical trap of addiction. The way out is to understand what it isn't about blame, it is about what to do. Honestly accepting your weakness if you can't manage addiction and go sober completely.

Re: Our Week Without Slack

#60
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Drink responsibly" isn't a great analogy. Drinking adds no tangible utility to anything significant. People do it because it's fun, not because it improves the quality of their work. Group chat adds tangible value to work when used responsibly. You can create a cultural requirement that minimizes interruptions by consigning random chit chat or idle questions to IMs that can be safely ignored for a time by muting not…

>Drinking adds no tangible utility to anything significant. People do it because it's fun, not because it improves the quality of their work. many creative people worked or were inspired "under influence" of various stuff causing addiction. >Group chat adds tangible value to work when used responsibly. some claim so. Well, for example cigarettes or a glass of wine help too - by calming down. Wine is also great for he…

It really amazes me that you're doubling down on this absurd analogy. In addition to drinking you've thrown in tobacco and meth(!) as though they somehow compare to the rather vague and amorphous "dopamine addiction" caused by notifications on a computer.

To bring all this back into context, Slack has a mute button. You can't mute the physically addictive qualities of drug addictions. This is a completely bizarre comparison.

Equally absurd is your equating the tangible productivity benefits of group chat software (minimizing distractions through asynchronous communication) in an office culture to the oft-cited but scientifically questionable benefits of using drugs to be more creative.

Even if you could prove that getting addicted to drugs makes you more creative through some sort of peer reviewed scientific study (is studying that in a controlled way even ethical?), I doubt anyone would argue that the tradeoffs were worth it because of the powerfully negative consequences of drug addictions.

And, once again, the analogy is absurd because the productivity benefits of using group chat are clearly less ambiguous and the risk of "dopamine addiction" is entirely optional with judicious use of that mute button.

And, frankly, as someone who knows multiple people struggling with drug addictions right now, I find the comparison offensive. No one's life will ever be destroyed by Slack the way I've seen people's lives being destroyed by alcohol and drugs.

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