Best Slack Hacks to Boost Productivity

Published on
March 22, 2024
Table of Contents:
Contributors
Phoenix Baker
Product Manager
Lana Steiner
Product Designer
Drew Cano
Frontend Engineer
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Honestly, who was using Slack before the pandemic? Not many, we shall say. By the end of 2019, Slack had around 88,000 paying customers. Not bad if we compare it to the 59,000 paying customers from the year before. However, in 2021 slack enjoyed 142,000 remote teams happily paying for its service. This means that Slack increased sales by more than 60% in two years and more than doubled (140%) in three years! This impressive revenue growth is not only due to the pandemic, but all the features Slack has to offer. In other words, it was ready for customer growth.

How has Slack transformed this into a better product with so much cash inflow? Let’s first review what’s exactly and how it can help to increase productivity:

Slack is where the future works, or so they say. In essence, it’s a messaging app for remote businesses. It also creates a highly collaborative work environment for teams spread around the world. This environment is more likely to improve ROI. For example, teams using a communication tool like Slack could have shorter sales cycles as there’s a 21% faster internal response time.

That said, even when using Slack, some users do not take advantage of it to maximize their days. Here are the best Slack hacks to boost productivity:

Integrations

Juggling different tools decreases focus and opens the door to interruptions and unproductivity. Slack allows many integrations to boost your experience and focus time.

Imagine an employee is having trouble getting things done. So you recommend them to use the Pomodoro technique. So, they download the app on their phones, but every time the timer is up, they take the opportunity to check all their notifications! Slack wants to avoid just that. You can integrate add-ons like the Pomodoro to Slack using DailyBot.

You can use DailyBot to revolutionize how remote communication works and boost productivity completely. Here are the best tools you can integrate into Slack:

1. Automated checking to reduce unnecessary meetings.

2. Gather feedback with on-demand forms in one place.

3. Promote a  Kudos culture and positive feedback that everyone will love.

4. Virtual Commute for the perfect work-life balance.

Explore more add-ons for slack!

Increase productivity by reducing time spent on meetings

Slack enjoys 12,000 daily active users sending over half a million messages each day. On average, people spend 30 hours on meetings each week. Maybe people could agree that meeting saturation is one of the biggest enemies of productivity. Instead, you can integrate methodologies like Agile to get periodic updates from every team member to see what everyone is up to or if there are any blockers. No need for Zoom!

At the end of the day, the whole point of video calls is to identify roadblocks and synchronize and bond with the team. Try using chat to do precisely that but more efficiently.

Asynchronous communication is here to stay. Find out 5 of the best tools to leverage asynchronous communication for remote teams →

Use keyboard shortcuts like a Pro

Commands are not only for video game players. Slack offers easy-to-use commands to boost your productivity at work. For example, you can use (/) to set a status (/status :emoji: lunch), join a channel (/join #channel), search on Giphy, start a Zoom meeting, and more.

Some commonly used Slack commands include:

  • /dm: Send a direct message to a team member.
  • /status: Update or clear your status.
  • /collapse: Collapse all GIFs, images, and files in a channel.
  • /away: Set your “away” status.
  • /expand: Expand all GIFs, images, and files in a channel.
  • /invite [@username] [#channel]: Invites a team member to a specific channel.
  • /who: Lists all the members of the channel.
  • /mute: Mute all messages in a channel.
  • /open: Open or join another channel.
  • /shortcuts: Open the keyboard shortcuts menu.

Things do not slow down when you’re searching for content instead. You can open the search bar and use the shortcuts:

  • cmd+F to search in the current conversation
  • cmd+G to start a quick search across the entire workspace
  • cmd+K to jump to a different conversation

You can mix shortcuts as well to get more interesting results:

  • "cmd+K" + "," to quickly search for group conversations

Slack also let users quickly react to messages from the keyboard. If you want to react with a emoji to the last message in a conversation, whether it’s in a channel or in private, use:

  • +:emoji: to add a reaction to the last message in a conversation
  • -:emoji: to remove a reaction from the conversation

PRO TIP: Create your own chat-ops with DailyBot, no code required. Simply add in the basic details and permissions, and your command will be available within DailyBot's chatbot immediately. See how it works →

Have fun with emojis and reactions!

Last week, Figma, one of the leading design systems, hosted a design event called “24 hours of design-packed goodness.” One of the coolest features they presented was The Hidden Kittens, a plugin to help give an emotional touch to the workspace.

“These Kittens are skilled at design and they will tell you what they think about your design decisions. You can replace the art director in your team with these Kittens.”

The workplace is moving towards a more genuine and human way of interacting with each other, so embrace the change and have fun on the way there! You could also include emojis in your weekly standups and track the team’s mood.

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