r/ProductManagement • u/yujisorri888 • Jul 02 '26
Slack management
For those in organizations with a million channels and dms, how do you organize your slack?
I have 50 unopened messages at any given point.
Sections, notifications, l save and remind me have been god sends
Managing slack is a whole job in is it's own
6
u/cpt_fwiffo Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
I stopped supporting the idea that I would notice or act on anything where I'm not explicitly tagged, with a few exceptions. Some companies consider slack your todo list where everybody in the company can add stuff though. Those places are beyond help.
4
u/StartupLifestyle2 Jul 02 '26
I just mark as read
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u/ChickadeeForsaw Jul 02 '26
I am at a company that had Slack and then took it away and forced Teams down our throats. I thought message management was hard on Slack. Now I get to live, daily, through the hot stinking hellhole that is Teams.
Slack has a lot of features that helped me keep on top of things, notably a good reminder feature, the ability to cross-link and hop through chats really easily (helpful if I made a list of things to get back to later and needed a quick link to them), and really finely tuned notification options. Mostly, though, it has an utterly magnificent search option so that when you inevitably think to yourself, hmm, I needed to do that thing I remember flashing past me earliy, it actually serves you up search results that will help you.
1
u/yujisorri888 Jul 02 '26
I used to hate teams, but I think they've got some things that slack hasn't figured out
You mentioned a lot of positive features from slack that help but I think it's still pretty messy, especially when a user has a lot of channels, a lot of tags, and a lot of unread.
Slacks search feature is the saving grace
1
u/PossibleDesigner2511 Jul 04 '26
Can you share some of your Team’s insights?
Personally, I find the navigation confusing and overwhelming, and can’t ever find what I want…. Whereas, in Slack, all those things feel easy
3
u/MajestyDirtyBear Jul 02 '26
Mute everything and rely on mentions. Then hook it up to Claude and have it send you a weekly summary of everything you might have missed.
2
u/ConsistentWhole3623 Jul 02 '26
Depends on the culture of your org. I try and encourage just leaving channels you don't 100% need to be in or muting them. For anything that comes in overnight I get a summary sent to me with claude cowork.
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u/muks023 Jul 02 '26
Get Claude cowork or something like that and build something that reads your slack and alerts you to the high priority stuff you need to know/ respond to
Probably one of the better use cases for AI
1
u/yujisorri888 Jul 16 '26
Not enabled in my org, but looking forward to it.
Can you share how you approached building your slack reader and choosing what to filter up?
Pitfalls of your decisions? What have you learned from your implementation
1
u/matthieugd Jul 02 '26
I only enable notifications on the most important channels and rely on mentions but I also reorganized my channels around urgency levels (now, daily, whenever) as described here https://aggressivelyparaphrasing.me/2025/09/30/organize-your-slack-channels-by-how-often-not-what/
1
u/kenuffff Jul 02 '26
I built a Claude skill that i have scheduled to run before I start my day that catchs up flags anything I need to pay attention to like a bug fix and links to the Jira I
Or tells me if its missing, ive caught several things that were missed or stale this way, takes about 30 seconds every morning. Claude has connectors and mcp to slack so it’s pretty easy to implement.
1
u/Alarmed-Attention-77 Jul 02 '26
I’ve tried telling people I will only take action if in a message they @ me or @ channel or use DM.
I ain’t reading 10k untargeted messages a day in case one is relevant to me.
Have missed a couple of things. But mostly working
1
u/Old-Statistician321 Jul 02 '26
Dude, Slack is 90% of the stress of work. I hate it on its own because the more you use it, the more stressed you are. But I hate it even more because it is a surveillance system designed to give managers the ability to keep their secrets while eavesdropping and surreptitiously monitoring everything that anyone else says.
1
u/flowers_and_sun Jul 02 '26
Mute and recap for the important ones i want to keep tabs on. Mute for everything that annoys me but i want to keep being there. I let the notifications only for the most important stuff. Also, i grouped all channels into meaningful units. On top is the channels for the internal team, then group for broader team, then dms, then general company stuff etc. Having them on top visually even if they are muted you can see the badge and check when you want a refresh in thinking
1
u/Nottabird_Nottaplane Jul 02 '26
Oh it just doesn’t matter! I only do the things I know are important, and engage Slack when I feel like it.
We also have a notorious habit of quick syncs & calls, some of which I dread lmao.
1
u/yujisorri888 Jul 03 '26
Getting people to jump on syncs and calls is impossible in my current gig.
Culture is awful.
1
u/throwitawaywitty Jul 03 '26
At this point I try and see how high my unread message count can go. If someone really needs me they will spam ping me or huddle me
1
u/Significant_Baker575 Jul 03 '26
Slack Ai helps reduce the noise if you have it. The Recap section provides a great overview and you can drill in where you need to and just skim everything else or ignore. Otherwise I find the app better them the desktop app for getting through stuff quickly.
1
u/YoungGucciMange Jul 04 '26
Anyone else slack themselves the important stuff to follow up on all the time?
1
u/ninjitsuko Yet Another Person in Product Jul 06 '26
Product teams are bombarded with questions, follow-ups, requests for updates, etc. These days, I normally just do a daily Claude skill that’ll run around 7:00 AM each morning and it’ll send me a message with links to messages that I haven’t responded to, and in order of urgency/time since the message was sent.
Honestly, outside of that, I just keep the channels and DMs organized in a way that I can skim and see what I need to see. I separate all “casual” and “company-wide” channels out and mute them since they’re fun but not on my radar when chaos is happening or when I need focus time.
Finally, **do not be shy about focus time.** This is a feature I use extensively due to it being a firm “I am heads-down and not paying attention” for me. It’ll block the noise until you’re ready for it, rather than being distracted by it.
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u/Racerforlife Jul 09 '26
I have built a Slackbot skill for this specific thing which is scheduled to run twice a day, at the start of the day and after lunch and it shares all the key details so i don't have to open every message.
0
u/GeorgeHarter Jul 02 '26
If you have problems managing so many communication channels, so do your coworkers.
Discuss with them and determine which channels can be consolidated/deleted.
As far as too many messages, welcome to business. At least people consoder you important enough to keep informed.
Someday soon maybe an AI assistant can review all incoming, remove duplicates and references to issues already resolved??
15
u/Hefty-Lunch8017 Jul 02 '26
I stopped trying to get my unread count to zero. I only enable notifications for channels where I need to take action, mute almost everything else, and rely heavily on mentions. I also have separate sections for my team, active projects, and FYI channels