Advice for Teams: Assume Asynchronous

After leading workshops that help people learn to focus, one of the most common questions I get is about managing distractions as a team.

Many of us feel that we have to check our email constantly and respond to Slack messages as they come in (aka constantly). The challenge is that we assume that these communication channels are synchronous, or to put another way, instant messaging.

Sidenote: Much of our early online communication was informed by AIM, AOL Instant Messenger. But even beyond that, Facebook messenger, text messaging, and WhatsApp.

Instant messaging assumes that the person we’re talking to is chatting with us in a live conversation. That’s fine in a social context. But at work, it’s what gets in the way of focus.

If we have to be present all the time in our communication channels, then we have to be constantly available for everyone. That doesn’t allow us to close email, quit Slack, put away our phones… ever.

So how are we supposed to get meaningful and deep work done?
One simple solution is to treat these as asynchronous communication.

Rather than live, instant, always-on conversations, we should assume that our team members are busy doing their actual work. So instead of sending a first message of “hey”, I can send the entire message of “Hey Paul, I’m looking for feedback on this presentation I’m giving to the client tomorrow. Will you look it over when you have time?” Same goes for email and text messaging too.

This works best if I’ve sat down with my team and agreed to these terms. And decided that emails and Slack messages can be replied to in an hour or two. But that’s a topic fod a different post.

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Caveday is a company aimed at improving your relationship to work. We write regular posts on Medium and send out monthly newsletters with productivity tips, life hacks, and recommendations. Sign up for the mailing list here.

Jake Kahana is a cofounder of Caveday. Sign up for his personal emails, called “The Email Refrigerator” here.