How to use Pulse to have more focus time in Slack?
Slack is known for its ability to improve workplace communication, but a common complaint is that it can often be filled with interruptions and notifications. This makes finding time to work in a focused and productive state a challenge for many workers.
Pulse’s automatic status was created to help alleviate the barrage of Slack notifications so that inbound communication happens around your availability, so you can get more tasks done and be productive.
Here are the ways Pulse supports more focus time
Learn more about focus time: What is Focus Time?
1.) Unplanned Focus Time (automatic focus detection)
We’ve all experienced those quiet moments where our work output just seems to be firing on all cylinders. This is deep work also known as ‘flow state.’ It’s not easy to predict or schedule when our minds will enter this zen.
Pulse is the first app that attempts to predict when you’re in a deep work state and automatically updates your Slack status to show that you’re ‘focusing’ to your teammates. Seeing this status creates empathy and sets expectations by encouraging your teammates to not disturb you so you can continue your deep work without distraction.
How does focus detection work?
Pulse uses a mixture of heuristics based on computer activity that we’ve developed to predict when you are in deep focus.
The model is built in such a way that you can also select its sensitivity so that you can find the right balance for when Pulse updates your status to ‘focused’.
If you want Pulse to error more on the side of protecting your focus time you would select the ‘Prioritize work & focus time’ option; ‘Prioritize availability’ places more emphasis on being available; and ‘Balanced’ finds a happy medium between these two settings.
2.) Planned or manually set Focus Time
While Pulse is the only app that supports unplanned focus time, it also does much to support planned focus time that is either scheduled in advance in your calendar or manually set when you’d like to go into a heads down work mode for a while without distraction.
How does Pulse work to support focus time with your Calendar?
You can connect your Google Calendar or Outlook calendar to Pulse and create custom calendar rules for ‘focus time’. When you schedule focus time blocks or time block periods for focus time into your calendar, Pulse will automatically update your Slack status to display the message and emoji you choose for the duration of your event. In the example below, anytime a calendar event using the keywords “focus time” or “focus” occurs, this users status will update to display:
See view of focusing status in Slack.
Slack Status automatically updates to prevent interruptions
Set Calendar rules to display any message & emoji as your Slack status during the event
Google Calendar Focus Time Events and Slack
Pulse also works with the Google Calendar ‘Focus Time’ event type available in the business tier Google Workspace plan. If your team is using this premium plan, you will find the ability to create ‘focus time’ events in your calendar. Pulse automatically translates these meeting types into your desired ‘focus’ Slack status.
You can configure the emoji you’d like to use for your Google Calendar focus time events in Pulse Settings > Calendar > Emoji from Google Calendar event types:
We hope you enjoy more focus time in your Slack workspace with Pulse.
Let us know if you have any questions at support@getpulse.team