Steal These Slack Settings to Actually Get Work Done
A 5-minute field guide to expose Slack’s good side (while minimizing attention-drain)
Does Slack’s constant stream of productivity-chilling interruptions ever make you want to hurl your laptop out the nearest window?
Okay, so it’s not that bad. (Yet…)
But I’m here to tell you there’s still hope for your aching, interruption-weary brain!
After wrangling with Slack full-time for a couple of years, I’ve settled on a handful of best practices and battle-tested settings that I swear by.
Your mileage may vary depending on team size, number of channels and your role, but I’ve shared these tips with a handful of teammates and received rave reviews so far.
For context, our team at Tailwind uses Slack heavily as our primary communications tools with dozens of channels across a team of 30+ people in two offices and 6+ remote locations.
Maybe it’ll help you fight through Slack overwhelm if you’re jumping into a team that leans deeply on real-time chat too.
Split your sidebar’s channels into these 3 types
This sidebar switch-up has dramatically increased my quality of life on Slack (and it only takes a couple minutes to set up.)
This view boils down to one simple principle: Only show unread and starred conversations in your sidebar. Nothing else.
This creates an easily scannable hierarchy:
1. 🌟 Starred Channels → Mission-critical or frequently used. You don’t want to scroll to find these 5x / day.
2. 📫 Unreads → No new messages in a channel? Keep it hidden. This surfaces only the channels you need to see when there’s something to know. Make a quick trip to Preferences → Sidebar to flip this on ASAP.
3. 🔇 Muted channels → This is for non-essential channels you enjoy checking-up on every once in a while, but you can’t bring yourself to leave.
Less notifications = More focus
Don’t be afraid to ignore Slack “chatter” most of the time (especially after office hours.)
I highly recommend turning off non-mention notifications for almost all channels and checking Slack more like email 2–4 times per day.
Here’s my current cocktail of settings to cut down notifications:
- My default notifications are set to “DMs, mentions & keywords” only. (You can adjust this under Preferences → Notifications → Notify me about…)
- I star a small handful of channels. (#tailwind, #marketing, #okc-office, and a DM group of marketers.)
- I mute non-essential channels that I only reference once per week or so like #music.
Stop information snacking. Instead, “batch” more.
This advice falls into the “obvious, but insanely difficult to consistently apply” category.
Solving tough problems or producing demanding, creative work requires focus. It’s also nearly impossible to produce high-quality output every day when you’re constantly fighting a stream of interruptions.
Small chunks of leftover time = A disaster for creative output. Bigger chunks of focused time can often pave the way for better, more focused work.
Here’s the thing… Slack is WAY too effective at ruining your focus time.
If you surrender to the natural urge to respond to every message as it arrives, you’ll find yourself responding to push notifications every 90 seconds until the heat death of the universe.
Bleak, huh? There’s a better way:
Embrace batch processing. Let the unread messages accumulate for a few hours, then knock them all out at once.
If you’re feeling fancy, use the “All Unreads” feature to quickly scroll through all your channels in one feed-style digest.
Reminders are your friend: Use them!
Your unfiltered brain is a terrible to-do list. Slack isn’t much better.
BUT if you just need a quick nudge to revisit a message in a few hours or next week, Slack’s built-in reminders can give you a convenient nudge to follow-up.
Use it wisely (and sparingly.)
Setting a Reminder for a Post? Let Teammates Know with a ⏰
Sending a real-time message makes everything feel rushed and urgent… But often, it’s more helpful to set a reminder, return a post at your leisure, then give the problem at hand your full attention.
But the rest of your team needs to know you’re not ignoring them.
That’s why the Alarm Clock Emoji hack pioneered by my teammate, Alisa, is so brilliant. When you set a reminder to come back to a post later, tack-on a simple ⏰ so everyone else knows you’ll get back to them.
You get to respond when the time’s right. Teammates feel heard. Everyone wins. That’s why this habit has caught on like wildfire throughout our entire team.
Know when a simple 👍 is enough
Nine out of ten times, sending that one last, “Got it. Thanks!” message isn’t adding value.
We’ve found that using reactions for affirmative replies to things, instead of saying “Ok”, or “Sounds good” helps keep noise to a minimum.
There are certain situations where it’s truly important for someone to know they’ve been explicitly heard and understood. But they’re the exceptions, not the norm.
Don’t be afraid to leave 👋
It’s easy to become a channel hoarder. Resist!
When you’re not actively contributing to a channel, leave it and don’t feel bad about it. You can always re-join later and teammates can tag you in if you’re needed specifically.
Quick Tip: Set a quarterly reminder to audit your current channels isn’t a terrible idea. Leave channels where you haven’t participated in the last 4–6 weeks. Profit. 💸
Please… Don’t bring the office home with you
I’m super guilty of violating this one — but I’m getting better.
It’s easy to adopt a reflex of constantly flicking open Slack to “check-in” on unread and popular threads.
And c’mon… We both know you have more fulfilling things to do at 7 p.m. on a Friday night than rehash messages after hours. Work can wait!
Generally, it’s a good call to enable “Do Not Disturb” after 5 p.m. and on weekends. I consciously make a point to avoid checking Slack for 3+ hours after work on weeknights too.
(Let’s be honest: I’ll still peek from time to time though. I’m only human. 🤷🏻♂️)
If you catch yourself constantly pulled into Slack on your smartphone, try deleting the mobile app. Slack works perfectly fine as a desktop-only tool on your work computer, I promise.
Become a keyboard ninja
Use the “Command + K” keyword shortcut to quickly switch between channels and conversations.
Put Slack on a diet: Focus more. Stress less.
It’s easy to pile on the Slack / email / open office / insert-office-trend-here hate train. But honestly, it’s not tremendously honest or helpful most of the time.
You can’t always change your work context. But the only thing stopping you from optimizing your own communication habits is… well, you.
And I think you’re gonna be just fine. 😉
Hopefully, you’ve picked up a couple of handy tweaks you can apply to your weekly Slack routine. Stick with it! Those tiny, 1% optimizations will add up over your working life (until we make the next jump to a virtual-reality-machine-learning-chatbot-powered-Slack-killer in 15 years… You never know. 😅)
Give the highest-impact optimizations your best shot. And seriously, don’t beat yourself up. If you care enough to read this far, you’re probably in pretty great shape. 🤙
Cheering for you!
- Matt
