Slack: Filtering Out the Noise

NOBL is a distributed org and I truly don't know where we'd be & how we'd get our work done without Slack. That said, Slack can quickly become noise over substance if you don't have some set norms and tools for how to make it work best for you.

There are thousand "Slack user tips" lists out there and this one is by no means meant to be comprehensive. Here are the tips I've gathered over time while working with clients newly using slack or finding that their Slack is quickly becoming overwhelming:

• # 1 recommendation: control your notification settings. You can temporarily snooze notifications, turn off notifications completely, set key words to receive notifications on very specific items, etc.
• If you find Slack distracting during meetings (Hi, I do ?????♀?) there's a Google Calendar app that can sync up with slack and 1) auto-update your slack status to show when you're in a meeting and 2) temporarily auto-mute your slack while in said meeting.
• Your own DM channel is a useful place to quickly note to-do's, questions, learnings, etc on the go
• Slackbot can remind you about a thread, task, message, etc.: ??? > Remind me about this... > pick a timeframe
• Hit the @ symbol in the top right window of Slack to see any activity that mentions you or your user group, including emoji reactions to anything you post.
• You can follow a slack thread (or a message before it becomes a thread) without replying to it by clicking ??? > More message actions… > follow message
• When Slack is acting funky you can almost always get it working by hitting Command+R (this tends to work better/faster than restarting the app entirely)
• You can star channels to separate your channels into groups (like active projects v. general use)
• Depending on how much of an admin you are on your company's slack, there's a lot you can do to customize the space. With great power comes great responsibility. Understand what the knobs and dials do before you start flipping and twisting them. You can access and change things like user groups, custom emojis, welcome messages, and Slackbot auto-responses by heading to: Administration > Workspace Settings.
• You can connect Slack to Google Suite review things like document comments and access requests on the fly.
• You can mute channels you don't need to regularly monitor! Stop by every once in a while, but avoid being bombarded with updates on a topic you don't need minute by minute news on.
• User groups let you create one @ handle that notifies a specific group of people as if their individual @name was used. 
• You can use the same backward and forward navigation commands that you use in your browser to move through the channels you've recently visited. This is super helpful because sometimes you are looking at something important and click on a notification, only to forget what channel you were in before. Instead of going through them all, simply click "command + [" on a Mac or "ALT + left arrow" on PC to go back.
• Be careful about overwhelming others with notifications. Including @here will notify everyone in the channel who is currently online. The @channel handle will notify everyone in a channel regardless of their current status.
• Use the "Pin to channel" option to save information regularly accessed on a particular topic.
• Threads are your friend. Use threads as a way to have a focused conversation on one particular topic. It'll make it easier to track for everyone inside and outside the conversation & much easier for you to look back and find down the road.

That's all, what'd I miss?