Can you elaborate? Slack's async feed used to ping me every 5 min and distract me from coding. I also found myself having OCD about going through each and every message that was sent to all channels - very low ROI obsession. I like the slightly higher barrier of having to send emails and refresh your email inbox :)
EDIT - thanks to everyone correcting me on the sync vs async! I fixed it in the original comment.
Synchronous communication typically means something that demands your attention as soon as something is sent. Asynchronous communication is something that typically handled whenever you're ready for it. To put it in programming terms, synchronous communication "blocks" until you deal with it, where as asynchronous doesn't require you to deal with it until you're ready to.
In my part of the world people will cringe and frown if they heard I am not using WhatsApp. I can understand them, I'd probably do the same thing if I heard someone does not use email. Personally I have trouble and probably mild OCD just to check every emails in my few email accounts, imagine going through all the Whatsapp groups messages. I'd rather voluntarily go to hard labour rather than reading the WhatsApp group messages.
What we need is an email++ with asynchronous nature of email and the convenient but not the intensity of WhatsApp, if that makes sense. Google Wave probably come close but it came earlier than expected and gone as soon as it arrived. Perhaps someone can utilize CRDT/Automerge to make it even better than Wave by going local-first.
I’m confused as well. FWIW, I always disable notifications, have a filter on my email for “you missed this message” emails to go to a separate inbox, only use slack/matter most in the browser, and only open it a few times a day.
I have trained my colleagues and boss to never expect a response right away. We’re also forced to use Skype at work which is a plague because people are lazy and will call about anything and everything without thinking it through. So same thing there, I’ve disabled all sounds, filter notification emails away, set my self to busy all the time, and never answer calls when they come in except it it was agreed upon beforehand (so, like a meeting)
I try and force these incurable skypers to send an email instead: it forces them to really think their stuff through, organize it in a more structured way, and takes me two minutes to answer instead of having a 15 min call that is all over the place.
And I don’t get interrupted while trying to visualize complex things in my head.
> I try and force these incurable skypers to send an email instead: it forces them to really think their stuff through, organize it in a more structured way, and takes me two minutes to answer instead of having a 15 min call that is all over the place.
This is a great way to handle people who jump straight to "let's just do a call, it'll be easier [for me]"
For people who are like this, I will often just say I'm not available for a call for a few hours, and ask them to send me a written message in Slack instead. Most of the time, I am able to just help them async on Slack instead of spending 30min-1hr (x2 since we're both in it) in a call.
In my mental scheme slack is mostly synchronous (people expect a reply, there's a @here thingy to ping everyone, etc) whereas e-mail is asynchronous (people don't expect an immediate reply).
You said "asynchronous communication is detrimental to your health". Since asynchronous=email, I read "email is detrimental to your health". I thought you meant the contrary (slack is detrimental to your health -> synchronous communication is detrimental to your health) so I though it was a mistake.
Maybe Teams doesn't work as well for other people as it does for us, but the problem seems to not exist for us on Teams. There's a few things that (accidentally or on purpose) make it work:
Threads/Conversations are the only way to talk in normal team channels. This means that messages are automatically grouped on topic and you can ignore the ones you don't care about. I have never worked with a Slack team that used threads effectively and so you regularly end up reading a load of stuff you don't care about to find the stuff you do care about.
Separation between a Team channel and a chat channel. Chat channels are more like normal Slack conversations - they end up being fairly synchronous. The Team channel is where the more asynchronous stuff goes. We have a strong project convention (almost a rule) to use use a Team channel if more than 2 people are involved. It helps visibility and means that conversations default to async. But if I write a direct message to someone then it's because I want to interrupt and get an answer and so they get pinged.
This means I get pinged a few times a day about things I need (as SW Lead) to deal with, and the rest of the time I can just catch up on threads when I'm waiting for a compilation.
EDIT - thanks to everyone correcting me on the sync vs async! I fixed it in the original comment.