please use threads in slack
Imagine calling someone on the phone, going hello, then hanging up, then calling back, going how, then hanging up, then calling back, going are, then hanging up, then calling back, going you? Even worse, imagine multiple people communciating this way back and forth in the same room as you 🤦♀️ ... Pretty distracting right?
❌ Don't do this
Note that slack channels are a place for collaboration on multiple topics.
People who don't thread their conversations or respond to each other in threads, could get confused. Not only that, unthreaded conversations are difficult to search for in the future. And worst of all, you create a notification storm for everyone in the channel, as if you were repeatedly making phone calls and hanging up after every couple of words. If you keep it up, people will start muting the channel and making effective collaboration harder for everyone.
When you don't thread your conversations/replies, you are hurting your team's productivity (and likely annoying others who don't want to or need to engage on your topic in this very moment).
Similar bad slack etiquette that drains productivity includes:
- Checking the box to send your thread response to the whole channel. If in doubt, don't check the box.
- Tagging @here or @channel when not everyone needs to be notified right now about your message.
- Following up on a recent discussion and starting a whole new thread.
- etc.
Just use threads! Please! 😫
✅ Instead try this
Using threads properly in slack is a win-win-win for everybody.
Benefits include, but not limited to:
- Multiple topics can be discussed across multiple people at the same time without confusion.
- People less likely to mute the channel and more likely to engage more frequently.
- Easily search and continue conversations from multiple days ago.
- etc.
Thanks for using threads and making everybody happy and productive! 🎉