How chat destroys your focus
Chat undermines your ability to communicate. Here’s what you can do about it.
While chat serves as an effective way to communicate quickly, it’s a poor way to communicate as a business.
Chat never replaced email, despite all promises to the contrary. It’s now another place that your team members have to check to stay on the same page.
But unlike email, most people communicate on chat in real time, one line at a time. If you’re not paying attention all the time, you won’t be able to contribute when something comes up.
The result? Your team members keep a chat window open all day on the side of their screen. They keep one eye on the chat window and the other on their work.
The chat window becomes a black hole for their attention, with their FOMO and heightened sense of urgency pulling them in with every ping. And what’s worse, the lasting effect of context shifting robs them of uninterrupted stretches of time to concentrate on the work they’re supposed to be doing.
That says nothing about the reality that having a meaningful discussion one line at a time, with numerous people interjecting sentences at random, is well… not an effective way to have a meaningful discussion. It leaves no time to process and respond thoughtfully.
Does this mean you should cut chat entirely? Probably not. But the way you choose to communicate has a major impact on your team, including how they feel at work.
Here are some key ways to approach using chat:
Treat channels like meetings: only invite the people you actually need in the room.
Summarize once or twice a day rather than drip messages continuously. And let people know when these summaries release so they can tune out without FOMO.
When you write a message, write the complete message with all the information included.
Set deadlines for responses. You need to give everyone time to consider the information and respond.
Don’t have important conversations through chat. Important topics need to be separated from the chatter.
Create guidelines for using chat effectively and hold people accountable. One person going back to the old way will spike FOMO and have you right back where you started.
Attention is one of your most precious resources, and full attention is required to do great work.
Chat shatters your day into dozens of fragments and undermines your ability not only to focus but to communicate well as a team.
Reconsider how you use chat as a team so you can do your best work.
Happy Monday,
Katie
Your Friendly Weekly Writer
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