On async communication habits.

[00:00:00] You are listening to the Daily Five, an experimental podcast by Aurooba, where I talk about something for five minutes. So let's get to it, shall we? One of the core concepts of working remotely is asynchronous communication. It's this idea that you shouldn't be expected to respond immediately. We don't all work the same hours,

[00:00:31] we don't all work in the same time zones, and effective asynchronous communication is actually a good thing, right? And it allows for people to get work done at their own time, in their own pace, and still be able to communicate and work in a team effectively. So are you practicing good, asynchronous, etiquette?

[00:00:55] Are you encouraging that in your own habits? Recently I [00:01:00] found that I am not, I – in an effort to be not a blocker for other people, I respond to them as quickly as I can. I keep the notifications turned on for most of the day, I only block it off for certain deep work moments. Hours maybe, maybe one hour, two hours.

[00:01:23] And otherwise I'm very responsive because I don't wanna be a blocker for my teammates, right, for the people that I'm working with. But in doing so, not only have I broken the rules of asynchronous communication, therefore encouraging others to expect instantaneous responses from me, I have also become a blocker for my own work.

[00:01:48] When you allow other people's attention seeking reasons, you know, and you know it's not a bad thing, they need something from you, they ask you for it – when you allow that to [00:02:00] interrupt your time and your work, you are doing a disservice to everyone, right? Because if you can't get your work done adequately or accurately or on time, then that is ultimately a far bigger problem than if you responded an hour later to someone rather than in the moment.

[00:02:19] The other thing is if people do expect you to respond instantaneously – when you don't, they worry. They either think you don't care, you're mad at them, you aren't paying attention, or you're away. Which means, for example, let's say there is a team decision to make, they're gonna assume you're not actually there and they'll make the decision without you, sometimes.

[00:02:42] That happens. It's a very common occurrence, and if you were practicing asynchronous communication etiquette, you know, good habits around asynchronous communication. and therefore encourage people to understand and remember that [00:03:00] not everyone is there at the same time? Then yes, it's a little bit slower, but it would probably mean that everyone's voice gets heard and a decision is made in a – in a better mindset and probably takes into account other insights and issues that may have come up.

[00:03:20] That you might have had to offer, but you weren't there synchronously to offer. So that's something I've been thinking about. You know, you cannot expect others to follow the etiquette of asynchronous communication if you don't. And part of that is making sure you're not always immediately responsive, which sounds counterintuitive, but what it is, is that

[00:03:46] instead of prioritizing, responding to other people in the moment, you should be prioritizing the other work, the actual work that you need to do. Now, this doesn't apply to the people who are essentially purely people [00:04:00] managers, and it is their job to talk to people and communicate with them constantly, but even those people have times where they need to practice that, where they need to set aside those notifications, not respond instantaneously, not let themselves be distracted by Slack and actually work.

[00:04:19] So I've been thinking about, you know, you can't expect other people to behave in one way if you don't behave in that way too. And in a remote environment, in a remote team, that matters more so than even in an in-person team. So asynchronous communication, good habits around that. That's what's on my mind today.

[00:04:45] Thanks for listening. Talk to you tomorrow.