Slack is great for team communication, but its notifications can pile up quickly and make it hard to focus. I used to struggle with all the noise myself, but over time, I found a few simple ways to cut out distractions and stay productive.
In this post, I’ll share the tips I use to make Slack work better for me.
Notifications
- Default Sound
- The default notification sound, Knock Brush, plays two tones, which I find distracting. I replaced it with ‘Ta-da’, a single tone. This made a big difference — it was an instant upgrade to my focus.
- Flash Window
- Flash windows are those message previews that pop up over your screen when someone messages you.
- I keep it to ‘never’ so that they don’t interrupt the deep work (a habit that I am cultivating).
- Mute Notifications
- I mute channels that don’t require my immediate attention—like team-wide discussions or channels for specific projects I’m not actively working on.
- This helps me stay focused during the day while still being able to check muted channels when needed.
Display
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Compact Theme
Preferences>Messages & media>Theme- Compact Theme reduces visual clutter by removing profile pictures and displaying only usernames next to messages, making it easier to scan through messages quickly.
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Channel Sections
- Slack allows you to organize your channels into custom sections. I’ve created three sections:
- Active Channels: These are the channels I use daily and have notifications enabled.
- Occasional Channels: Channels I check at specific times of the day, like for recurring tasks or event updates.
- Muted Channels: Channels I don’t need to monitor frequently, but I keep them muted so I can check them when something important comes up.
- Here, I have also enabled ‘Show Unreads only’ so that I only see the required channels, instead of list of all channels.
Message
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One-click Reactions
Preferences>Messages & media>Show one-click reactions- I use certain reactions frequently. With this setting, I don’t have to open the emoji panel each time—I can just click once and keep moving.
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Start at newest message
Preferences>Mark as read>Start me at the newest message, and mark the channel read- By default, Slack shows unread messages first when you open a channel. I prefer starting at the newest message instead. This way, I skip over older messages that don’t need my attention, and I can scroll up if I need to catch up on anything.
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Markdown Formatting
Preferences>Advanced>Input options>Format messages with markup- This is one of my favorite settings. Slack’s default formatting toolbar feels slow to me, so I use markdown to quickly format messages.
- Proper formatting helps me organize my thoughts more clearly and makes messages easier to understand for everyone, saving time for everyone involved.
- For this, I use:
[some text](link)for hyperlinks*bold text*for bold text_italic text_for italic text-for bullet points`text`for inline code highlights
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Threads
- With threads, I can check recent messages across channels in same place
- This saves time of navigating to individual channels and then searching for particular chat.
Conclusion
We can’t eliminate all the noise, but with a few simple changes, we can create a more focused and productive workspace. Try these adjustments and see if they help improve your workflow.