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12 Comments

Slack is just an all day meeting with no agenda

  1. 6

    I agree with this... mostly. This is why I disabled all Slack notifications (even the red dot) and check Slack at fixed times throughout the day.
    Other than that, we have a really good structure with dedicated channels for each product etc., so stuff is relatively easy to find.

    1. 1

      You are more disciplined and diligent than most (myself included).

  2. 4

    This is one of the biggest problems I've always had with Slack.

    A percentage of my work goes to waste because I'm not able to find it later in the Slack archives.

    It might be an idea, a decision, or just the details of my work that gets lost.

    Anyone else experience this?

    1. 3

      This comment was deleted a year ago.

      1. 2

        That has not been my experience. If it was that, I would be way more active in it. For me it's been a place for senior leaders and VP's to tag @here on channels that you were added to with messages that pertain to a small amount of people, but under the guise of disclosure they notify everyone.

        If they could actually replicate something like the discord I have with my friends where we can literally sit in there for hours, sometimes barely talking, but feeling connected with one another, with the odd "omg, look at this meme" and we laugh for a while. I mean, I would be much more enriched at my job.

      2. 1

        I do think there is some usefulness to it too. (There has to be or else millions wouldn't use it for work.) The problem is having relevant work convos that hash out real decisions and strategy mixed in with a firehose of memes and random crap makes finding the important stuff nearly impossible.

  3. 3

    Totally, the other big issue with Slack is "sneaky" interruptions. I'm tracking that and at the end of my day, I was checking slack more than 100 times! It's hard to get in the zone with so much context-switching.

    Now I'm trying to do it in blocks, ie. check only every hour or so.

  4. 1

    logging out of slack for a few hours after reading this thread...

  5. 1

    Slack is additive if you start acting on quick notifications. That's why I disabled my account and now removed it with only task manager.
    Anyway all these task/project managers have basic chat features now.
    So a person can have communication there too if anyone wish.

  6. 1

    Agreed, and WFH just makes it worse. I got into the habit of trying to respond to messages as soon as I could, which eventually led to this state of always checking Slack to see if anyone needed anything, even on quiet days. Been trying to stop that bad habit now since it makes it very difficult to get into flow and do deep work.

  7. 0

    You need to know how to use Slack.
    You can say that about anything.

    Going to the grocery store without a list is like a recipe for disaster too - you either buy stuff you don't need or you buy the wrong stuff (how many times did you ask yourself, wait a second do I need to buy more milk? or do I still have the bottle)

    That's the truth, these are just clickbait tweets

    1. 1

      While I actually agree to a point...

      You can say "you can say that about anything" about anything.

      Does product design matter?

      Do tools matter?

      Yes and no.

      While you can do great work with a pen and paper, most people use and pay for tools to make life easier and do better work.

      Slack is a multi-billion dollar company. They made tradeoffs. They designed a product that was addictive and gratifying. And good for them, it worked. Hence the $$$.

      But customers can and should push back about the habits it's forced on us as "users".

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