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Comment by tduberne | Hacker News Reader

On that topic, I really like David Allen's "hierarchy of communication channels" (name is mine) in Getting Things Done. He says that when you need to discuss something with someone, you should consider the following communication channels, in that order:

- e-mail

- leave hand written note on desk/in pigeon hole

- send IM/text message.

- put topic on a "list of things to discuss i next meeting"

- phone call/face to face

You should choose the first that fits the urgency of the situation. The idea being to maximize trackability and minimize disruptions. In the current Slack culture, I actually put IM just before phone call, given the expectation of quick answer most people have.

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Do you think there might be a problem with leaning on a book that is nearly 20 years old when you are talking about communication in the modern workplace?

If someone left a hand-written note on my desk I would today put it in the same category as ‘venomous passive aggressive notes on the fridge’. It seems like possibly the least effective way to get someone to do something.

There might be a problem in taking it too literally, but I think the underlying concept is very current, and maybe even more important than when the book was written: as much as possible, favor keeping a written trace and avoid disruptions to others.

To the written note: I think that really depends on workplace culture and communication content. I see it as e-mail for printed documents. For instance, in my workplace, it is quite common to exchange printouts of scientific articles that way, with a post it "you might find this interesting".

> - put topic on a "list of things to discuss i next meeting"

This single habit probably takes care of 80% of the issues people have in this thread. I almost wish Slack encouraged you to elevate DM drafts to a not urgent but important status to short-circuit the interruption pattern. Then you could review this stack as a mini-agenda and batch conversation topics when appropriate.

I'd probably put "ask them face-to-face during lunchtime" first. Email feels like quite a heavy cannon for many things.

> "ask them face-to-face during lunchtime"

Please, please, please don't do this. A lunch break should be a break, not a meeting while eating. Even if you don't mind working throuhg your lunch, others might.

Interesting take. We talk about work-ish things at lunch quite often. It seems to be more of a break from doing work vs. a moratorium on thinking/discussing work-related things. I mean, a huge number of my relationships with coworkers are solely based on working together; what other common ground do we share?

Haha, I meant this for people who already talk about work stuff during lunch. Not with people who'd prefer not to.

Still, asking right before/after lunch is less interrupting.

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