4 Ways to Show Your Communication Tools Some Love

Email and chat are the two most common forms of digital communication in today’s workplace. In fact, among business workers, 95% rely on email each day and more than 42% use a chat application to communicate at work. We’re using these tools day in and day out to process the hundreds of messages we’re receiving each day. But with such a high volume to deal with, staying on top of it all can become a task in itself. Fear not! Find out how you can keep those emails and chats organized just by showing your messaging tools some love.

Prioritize Your Inbox

When you’re navigating hundreds of messages each day, keeping track of what’s important can become overwhelming. If you already have a prioritization system that works for you, stick to it. If not, there’s no time like the present to adopt one. Some tools do the hard work for you, and have features that help you identify what’s important so you never miss what matters. You can use other techniques like unsubscribing from promotions, archiving chat channels to reduce clutter, setting up rules, or finding an efficient filing system.

Establish Do Not Disturb Hours

It’s become commonplace for our coworkers to send us a follow up chat message as soon as an email is sent our way. These folks are known as the Eager Beavers of the chat world, and they sure can get things done quickly. The problem is, they’re ruining your productivity along the way. In fact, one study showed that we experience reduced cognitive performance when we leave an unfinished task to start a new one — like responding to a chat message. The reason is that our brain continues to focus on our first task even though we’ve moved on to something new. During peak concentration times, show your chat tool some love by setting Do Not Disturb hours. Manage when you receive those chat notifications so that you’re not compromising efficiency when you need it the most. Your focus will thank you.

Set Up Specific Notifications

With all the channels and chat messages we are being sent each day, we can easily miss an important item that just fell through the cracks. To avoid getting bit by the, “I must have missed that…” bug, set up notifications in chat on keywords that matter most to you. Doing so will alert you whenever you’re specifically mentioned in a channel and/or when a predefined keyword is used.

Bring them Together

Show your messaging tools some love by bringing them together. Umuse combines all of your email and chat messages together in one place so you can prioritize, read, search, and save across all of the channels that matter most to you.

With a little love, time, and organization, we can create a more strategic way of getting through our work day and hopefully harness a bit more productivity along the way. Know another way to show your messaging tools some love this Valentine’s Day? We want to hear it!