I've felt overwhelmed too - multiple companies and community workspaces add up. Here are a few of the things I've done:
1. Disconnect the community workspaces that you don't really need or rarely, if ever, participate in. You can always reconnect periodically to get caught up.
2. Leave channels that you never participate in or waste time - like joke and water cooler channels.
3. Mute channels that you rarely participate in, but don't want to hurt anyone's feelings by leaving.
4. Stay out of most conversations that aren't directly related to your work.
5. Use threads and encourage others to use threads so no one has to scroll through conversations that don't pertain to them.
6. Mark yourself as away when you need to be heads down.
7. (Maybe better) Close Slack when you need to be heads down.
8. Don't respond to channel communication immediately, unless something really requires your immediate attention.
9. Don't respond immediately to every DM, unless it's important.
Essentially, do self care and set reasonable boundaries.
I would like to add a 7.5 is possible. Run slack in a browser and disable tab notifications. The app is so jarring when it comes to stealing attention. The most I get in the browser is the favicon will have a little red dot. I miss it most of the times which is a perfect balance for catching up on slack and getting things done.
1. Disconnect the community workspaces that you don't really need or rarely, if ever, participate in. You can always reconnect periodically to get caught up. 2. Leave channels that you never participate in or waste time - like joke and water cooler channels. 3. Mute channels that you rarely participate in, but don't want to hurt anyone's feelings by leaving. 4. Stay out of most conversations that aren't directly related to your work. 5. Use threads and encourage others to use threads so no one has to scroll through conversations that don't pertain to them. 6. Mark yourself as away when you need to be heads down. 7. (Maybe better) Close Slack when you need to be heads down. 8. Don't respond to channel communication immediately, unless something really requires your immediate attention. 9. Don't respond immediately to every DM, unless it's important.
Essentially, do self care and set reasonable boundaries.