Slack rant – --> --> --> --> --> Slack rant | The Blog of Andrey Lepekhin
Slack rant<br>Jul 30, 2018 goal, productivity blog,<br>2 minute read<br>Replying to Slack messages feels productive, but it is a very, very addictive way to procrastinate. It’s hard to say no to it. Others are replying fast. Instant messaging creates expectation of a fast answer. It’s not your grandpa’s email after all. It is gratifying, it is a quick fix, it’s easy. Get your dopamine hit now .<br>Oh, it feels good having answered all unread messages. No anxiety. Bliss. Yet the faster you reply, the faster you get another message.<br>There’s no real multitasking for humans. You have to decide whether you want to have a state of flow or allow constant interruptions1.<br>Not plunging into this infinite pseudo-productive sea of quick-fixes is something that is still hard for me. I don’t have new message notifications of course, but I know that red unread messages counter exists and it beckons.
Counter-measures<br>I lobby for not-expecting-an-immediate-answer culture when I can<br>Slack is hidden in the tray or turned off by default<br>I try to answer messages in bulk at scheduled unproductive times of the day.<br>I try not to mark messages as unread. This is still hard. Otherwise, I read a message, decide I don’t want to answer now, mark it unread… and one hour later the cycle repeats, eating away my time and attention.<br>I start working at home, with no distractions, no phone, no Slack, no email.<br>There is one thing that really helps me with slackrastination (that is a word now), or any procrastination for that matter: instead of automatically changing what you do, you make the process as conscious as possible. For me the good example are weeks when I track my time. Each time I change what I do, I write the new activity down and start corresponding activity timer2. When I am in a state of flow and start writing “Slack” to change timers, I usually catch myself and go back to doing the important stuff.<br>My wallpaper at work
Don’t get me started on open space offices, I have one rant per post policy. ↩
I use Toggl for that. ↩