Don't press Enter

Slack and Microsoft Teams introduced a destructive habit.

They made something so simple, yet so destructive, extremely easy to do.

They've added a machine gun to each of our keyboards.

I'm talking about the ability to

send

multiple messages

like this

in short paragraphs

with

notications

notifications*

piling up.

They treated work messaging as regular messaging. But these things are not the same.

This encourages rapid-fire messages without much thought. This leads to shitty written communication, which leads to bad information transmittion, and that leads to shitty decisions.

The quality of what you write makes up the quality of your decisions. Period.

Not to mention it stresses you. Just take note of how you feel when you open up Slack after a few hours and you see a small red dot with 27 unread notifications next to it.

It increases the tempo of the team. And while traditional hustle and startup culture leads you to believe that's good, it's not.

How many good decisions have you done while stressed and rushed? Not many, I believe. The biggest and most impactful decisions in our own life, in history, and in companies were always done in a calm environment. They needed time to be reflected upon.

So stop smashing that Enter button. Take some time with your messages. Compose information calmly. Everyone will thank you.