Slack is a powerful tool, but if used incorrectly it can become a huge distracting mess.

One of the primary goals of good Slack use is to expose as many conversations publicly for both collaboration and information purposes. By leveraging public channels, and composing longer easier to scan messages you can minimize follow-up questions and increase team awareness.

Second, to maximize focus for the distributed team, you should prioritize asynchronous communication and minimize message notifications. By batching messages, using discussion threads, and replacing short responses with emoji reactions you can dramatically reduce notifications and enable you and your team to focus on higher priority core work.