Narrow Down Your Communication Channels.

I frequently hear my clients and students complaining about being constantly interrupted by phone calls, Slack and Teams messages, WhatsApp, and other messenger apps, as well as email. Is it any wonder why people find they cannot complete their work each day?

When you have so many open communication channels, of course, you will be interrupted, and the worst part is that you cannot blame anyone for this state of affairs. You signed up for all these services.

I learned this lesson the hard way around four years ago. Like most people, I had email, Slack, Google Hangouts (as it was called then), Kakao Talk (a Korean version of WhatsApp), WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, iMessage, Twitter, and many more. As a result, it was almost impossible to stay on top of all my messages.

In the end, I did a purge. The first messaging apps to go were the social media ones. Facebook Messenger and Twitter were the worst culprits, so I deleted those apps. The next one was WhatsApp, as this was mainly spam messages.

Ultimately, I left myself with email, iMessage and Kakao Talk.

I did not delete my accounts on the other services; instead, I would use the website to log in if I needed to access my messages on other services. That way, there were no alerts, notifications, or anything else telling me I had messages. I checked these channels when I had time.

I learned with this exercise that people will use whatever channel you use. If you are not on WhatsApp, people cannot interrupt you. You can direct close friends and colleagues to your preferred form of communication.

For example, for work, my preferred form of communication is email. I have an effective email management system that allows me to get on with my work without being distracted. I clear my inbox twice a day, and I reply to my messages once a day (5 pm to 6 pm). As a result, anyone who emails me regularly will quickly pick up my routines and be confident they will get a reply within 24 hours.

Now, I can hear many of you making excuses already. Excuses such as; “my company use Teams messages; I have to have it.”

Sure, you may need Teams for your company messages, but do you have to have it on your phone? Unless your…

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