You need LESS communication
The Internet has no shortage of blog posts from all sorts of people talking about the best ways to communicate online. You’ve seen them:
- Just use email
- Use slack for everything
- Use email for some things and slack for other things
- Use email and have it message you on slack when you get an email
- Use slack but then have a separate VIP group on WhatsApp
etc. etc.
Everyone thinks their way is best and ultimately you’re doing either what your boss wants you to do, what the corporate policy wants you to do, or what your clients want you to do. And everyone thinks the problem is gonna get solved if you do it their way.
What’s the actual problem?
What problem are we trying to solve? We need to communicate with someone else using text and we need them to read it, and the problem is they are not reading everything we send them. And from the flip side, too many people are sending us things to read, so we are not reading everything sent to us.
So, the problem is not HOW we are getting the messages. No matter how we get the messages, it’s still a lot of messages, and we’re still not going to read it all, and the other people aren’t going to read all of our messages.
I AM BEGGING YOU TO STOP EMAILING ME
The “Stop Posting” approach to corporate communications
So here’s the solution: stop posting. Really just like, take a second to think about what you’re sending.
Ask yourself:
Could this meeting be a zoom? Could this zoom be a phone call? Could this phone call be an email? Could this email be a text? Could this text be unsent?
Could we in silence retreat to the forest? Could we, by game trails & forgotten paths, vanish into the trees?
A lot of people like to send messages just so the boss knows they’re working, or because they need to keep a “paper” trail. But honestly fucking give that shit up, it’s stupid. Just don’t do it. You can send one “paper trail” CYA email at the end of the week, end of story.
Tip on how to stop posting
- Where supported by platform, replace replies with either nothing (preferable) or with emoji reacts.
- Before sending anything, think if you need to send this message in order to do your job, or if you can do your job without sending the message. If you can do it without sending, don’t send.
- After you post on Slack, read your post. Is it necessary? If not, delete it.
- When you receive a message, think: do you really need to respond to this message in order to do your job? Or can you just ignore it?
- If you feel like you must write a message, consider writing it as a note on your computer (text file/notes.app/OneNote/whatever you use) and just save it there. Don’t send it to anyone. Nobody needs or wants to read it.
Next steps
The next steps are to stop posting.
rogue it communication June 10 2022