How Slack Employees Use Slack

Slack has become a business mainstay for office communication and productivity. But despite its known chat features, the product can be used for much more. We asked an insider for tips and tricks to get the most out of Slack.

1. Bookmark Important Messages

If Anna Pickard, Slack’s editorial director, doesn’t have time to read a post, she stars it, which stores it away for later. Clicking on the star icon at the top right corner of Slack’s landing page shows all starred posts.

2. Practice Channel Management

Pickard also stars channels and direct-messaging threads that matter most so that they’re at the top of her queue. She mutes some channels (so that they are de-emphasized in the menu). “[It’s helpful to] create a culture where that’s okay,” she says. In some channels, “there are already too many cooks.”

3. Respond Wisely

Slack users can acknowledge colleagues’ posts with emojis, which are often cute or clever but rarely anything more. Pickard makes the reactions functional: When someone assigns her a task, she reacts with the “eyes” emoji, which means she’ll look at it. When she’s finished, she scrolls back and adds a green check mark. Team members can look back through the channel and see what tasks are outstanding based on the reactions underneath each post.

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A version of this article appeared in the December 2016/January 2017 issue of Fast Company magazine.