The Half-Life of Workplace Communication

Hello again, it's me — Tem. If you're like, "what the heck is this?", then you're amongst the 1,178 of my LinkedIn connections that didn't subscribe to this newsletter.

(It's okay, we can still be friends)

In the previous issue, I re-introduced the newsletter and Optemization.com — the remote team productivity agency I run.

The five top things that happened during our marketing hiatus are:

1. We completed 65 projects for 53 clients
2. We built out the team from two to 13 teammates
3. We grew annual revenue 554% from $47k to $312k in 2021
4. We aligned on our mission to work with distributed teams
5. We outlined a strategy to productize our services

It's a moderately entertaining read which you can find on our website here .

Now, onto the meat of this issue...

Half-Life of Workplace Communication

At Optemization, our mission is to help distributed teams build modern workspaces and systems that promote autonomy, trust, and collaboration.

Communication is a key piece of this puzzle.

Specifically, workplace communication evolved steadily over the last 40 years but at a hyper pace over the last few. We went from tapping our coworkers on the shoulder and spending 4-8 hours in a conference room to Slack and Zoom calls from our homes. This shift is not only a polar opposite to what our brains are used to, but due to a plethora of choices – it is hard to select a medium to deliver your message.

So how are you supposed to know when to message someone and how to send them that message?

In this article, my teammate Thor, will:

• Break down different communication styles.
• Highlight tools best suited for each style.
• Determine the half-life* of each.
• Outline a recommendation.

*Half-life: how long something takes to wear down or be of use.

Communication Styles

Social media is littered with an ongoing battle of communication norms. The terms sync and async are thrown around in comment sections – having tech bros wear the keycaps off their custom keyboards. Once you get past all the bickering, you will see that there is actually a good reason to talk about it. There is a big difference between these norms and some areas that can overlap.

Synchronous communication is conversing in near real-time. This can be a video call, phone, call, Slack message, text, etc. The cadence and expected reply time to this type of communication are fairly immediate. This means the recipient is waiting for a reply and will likely not move on until they get it. Sync communication allows for greater in-the-moment collaboration and faster decision-making but tends to take away from focused work.

Asynchronous communication is the polar opposite. These look like emails, comments in documents, comments in project management tools, Loom videos, and even messages in Slack. This form of comms can generally allow for all parties involved to reply when it best suits them. These communication chains can last very long, having conversations span days. Async communication allows for better individual work and more thoughtful and informed responses but does not lend to fast-paced collaboration.

There is a case to be made for hybrid communication. This means that your company or more specifically, your team, uses both forms. This allows for the best of both worlds. Setting a communication default is key here. So if the worker doesn’t know what to use, they can use the default.

Communication Tools

There are a lot of great tools for communication. There seems to be a new kid on the block daily. As much as those tools are great, let’s focus on the tried and true ones and how they work with each style.

Continue Reading

In Other News

Are you a YC company?

We've partnered with a no-code data sync startup called Whalesync to offer free Notion office hours for Y Combinator companies. There are 10/30 slots available, first come first serve – Sign up Now .

The time is yours to ask whatever you want about Notion. It's a great way to get feedback on your current workspace or explore ways to level up. A few of the types of questions that might be relevant:

• We’re just getting started with Notion. How should I think about organizing it?
• We have a small team using Notion but how should I organize Notion as we scale?
• My Notion workspace is a dumpster fire of a mess. How do I fix it?
• We’re currently using GDrive/Dropbox/OneDrive/Confluence — should we switch?
• How does Notion compare to Coda or Almanac?

Are you in New York?

I'm bringing up Notion NYC events! Last week, we hosted an epic coffee cart popup in SoHo. Future events will bring together folks passionate about Notion, productivity, system thinking, and tools for thought. If that's your jam – subscribe to get notified here .

Are you awesome?

Yes, you are. Because you reached the end of this issue and I appreciate that. Next week, we'll write about an awesome deep work tool that we've been using to get into the flow and get shit done, so stay tuned (and subscribed).

Adios amigos,

Tem