As a freelance community spread across over 40 countries, we know a thing or two about remote working. And over the last five years, we’ve figured out how to do it right. One of the tools we trust most is Slack – you just need to know how to get the best out of it.
For the uninitiated, Slack is a collaboration tool that replaces email to help you and your team work together seamlessly. It’s designed to support the way people naturally work together, so you can collaborate with people online as efficiently as you do face-to-face. That’s why it works so well for remote teams.
The biggest issue with Slack is that it can get quite overwhelming – with multiple ‘channels’, ‘messages’ and ‘teams’, it can easily become a time-drain instead of a time-saver. So we quickly realised we’d need to help Hoxbies joining our community get to grips with it. The result? A comprehensive guide on how to use Slack (the right way). And it’s been so helpful, we wanted to share it with you too…
Slack is where we live. We know how to make it into a remote team’s best friend. So here’s everything you need to know to make it work for you too.
What’s in this guide (click the link to jump straight there):
Ensure you don’t forget about Slack messages you’ve read or sent
These tips assume you’re using the Slack app on your laptop rather than using it in a browser (or via the mobile app alone). If you’re not, why not download it now? The UX is much nicer than the browser version.
- Download Slack for Mac
- Download Slack for Windows
If you’d like to be connected on the go, download the Slack app for IOS or Android from your phone’s app store.
If you do one thing to make Slack work for you, make sure your notifications are set up to add value to rather than disrupt your day. Here’s how:
- Click your name at the top left of the app
- Select ‘Preferences’ in the dropdown menu
- Set-up the various notifications as best fits the way you work… although we recommend the following:
- Change the ‘Notify me about…’ section to ‘Nothing’, or at the very least ‘Direct messages, mentions & keywords’. Slack gets really noisy and if you have the app installed, you’ll get in the habit of checking it periodically to see what you’ve missed, without the need for notifications
- Set ‘Do Not Disturb’ hours that match when you work. So if you don’t work mornings, disable notifications until the afternoon
- In the ‘Sounds & appearance’ section, disable as much as you can. The red dot badge can be just as distracting as a pop-up notification
- If you’re worried about missing anything important, change the final setting on the page to send you email notifications once an hour. You’ll only get these if you are specifically mentioned so you won’t get inundated
Top tip: To pause notifications at any time, click the bell icon in the top left of the app. You’ll see a range of pause options and links to the notification preferences page.
There’s more: If you’re working on a project or a cause, you may want to be notified about messages in the related channel while keeping your notifications generally quiet. Here’s how.
More from Slack on notifications…
Editing your Workspace Directory profile is the easiest thing you can do to help your team members get to know you and quickly find you. Here’s how:
- Click your name at the top left of the app
- Select ‘Profile & account’ in the dropdown menu
- Your Workspace Directory listing will appear in the right-hand column of the app; click the ‘Edit profile’ button
- Enter your full name and display name