The complete guide for Slack productivity.

Slack has become much more than a communication platform. There are tons of features and integrations in slack.

As a developer you should know how to use your tools efficiently. Below 7 tips and tricks will help you do more and save time.

1. Use shortcuts (listing mac shortcuts)

• cmd + [ or ] - Navigate between old/new chats

• cmd + k - Search for channel, people, files

• cmd + f - Search messages or files in a chat/channel

• Up Arrow - Edit last message you sent

  You can find and remember other shortcuts if you have any actions you do repeatedly.

  Find more shortcuts here

2. Group channels (create new section)

As you get added to more and more channels it gets difficult to keep track whats going on where.

Its like a messy table, You can group the channels by sections. You can name these section anything(ex. Org, Team, Project channels)

It visually organises the conversations, and helps you get to important messages first.

Read further here

3. Use slash commands

Slash commands are very easy and quick way to do actions or run commands in slack

The ones I mostly use are,

• /remind - Remind someone or channel to do something at certain time.
• /away - Toggle your online status.
• /giphy - Post a GIF on chat/channel

There are other slash commands of slack apps that you installed.

4. Mute channels

When slack channels and messages get out of hand, its better to mute some channels which do not require your attention immediately. You can check these at end of day or when you get free time

5. Find channel, people or files (browser)

Along with global search for channels, people and files, Slack offers separate browser for each of these entities.

Channel browser, File browser, People and user groups, and App browser.

These are very helpful if you are looking specifically for one thing, Ex. a file you shared 3 months back.

6. Saved Items for revisiting messages

Some messages need to be revisited frequently, It is likely these messages gets lost in chat with newer messages coming in daily.

Its gets very easy to save these messages and find them under saved messages, ( Just like bookmarks in browsers )

7. Apps and Integrations

Slack apps are very useful for specific purpose.

There are many apps available in slack app library, these apps will boost your collaboration and productivity.

• Google calendar
  1. This app will remind you of meetings 1 min before.
  2. It gives summary of meetings for the day, So you can plan the day
• Github
  1. This app helps get updates about that project. Run/github subscribe [owner/repo] in any conversation to start receiving updates. You will get notifications for Pull Requests, New commits, Issues. This saves time in code reviews.