[zls]

I’m having trouble following. Presumably the person you’re interrupting is also doing serious-business-focus work.

First off, since you’re the one interrupting them, common courtesy suggests you should try to accommodate their communication preferences.

Second, that five minute call is saving you 45m of text back-and-forth, which lets you get back to focusing faster. Not to mention saving the helper frustration, if you’re regularly leaving five minute gaps between replies.

And not even getting into the pernicious effects of having a culture where pseudo-synchronous instant messaging is broadly preferred over synchronous calls. In such cultures, all communication is so inefficient that everyone is in several conversations at all times; good luck ever achieving focus in that environment. There’s a reason why Cal Newport hates Slack, and he literally wrote the book on focused work.

[nottorp]

> Second, that five minute call is saving you 45m of text back-and-forth

Except five minute calls tend to last 60 minutes...

> pseudo-synchronous instant messaging is broadly preferred over synchronous calls.

Yep, you should go fully async.

[zls]

Haven’t had that problem with calls. People have had to learn how to politely end conversations probably about as long as we’ve been using language. Once you learn that, the calls don’t drag.

On the other hand, if a call takes five, ten, fifteen minutes for good reason, it would have been hours or even days of messages. How many times have you spent ten minutes helping fix a newbie’s dev environment, and afterward they say “wow, thanks, I’ve been stuck all morning”?

And those calls aren’t rare! Knowing how (and when) to use calls over messages has been one of the most useful “soft skills” in my career toolkit.

[wheels]

I read the grandparent differently than you and nightpool.

I read the first two paragraphs as general policy, and then the following lines as specific cases. To come to the interpretation you guys had, you have to assume that the fifth paragraph supersedes the first. It's possible that's how the author meant it, but that's not obvious. The first paragraph implies virtually always preferring calling, independent of which direction the help is flowing.

Addendum:

I don't love Slack, but my company is small, and the number of messages per day is in the 10s. Nevertheless, I have notifications disabled for all messengers, because I also find them interrupting. I only see messages when I'm switching windows anyway. I have the same on my phone: I only have visual notifications. I disable sounds and vibrate. When I'm either being particularly productive, or particularly struggling to focus, I close all communications apps.