Slack Mastery

Here you’ll learn the most practical tips and tricks in Slack so you can use it like a pro

🇬🇧

To organize your workspace is really important; that way you can scale and cover everything with a clean mind. In this SOP we will talk about all the tips and tricks you need to maintain a clean Slack so your mind is also free of fog.

🇪🇦

Sections

🇬🇧

In Slack, most of the time we have multiple channels, and if they aren’t organized, things can get messy and you lose time trying to find stuff or overthinking where everything is. With clear sections, you don’t have to worry about that.

In Slack, you can organize your channels into sections.

Here are my channels before I create a section—totally a mess.

So everything is not a mess, we strongly recommend the use of sections.

Here is how a section is created:

1. Hover over Channels

2. Right-click or click on the three dots

3. Click on Create

4. Click on Create section

5. Create the sections you need

6. Drag and drop the channels you want in each section

Give a name to your section and choose an emoji for it so it stands out.

When you create and organize Slack sections, try to do it by hierarchy. Put your most important channels in a top section called something like "⭐ Key", so all your priority channels live in the same place. That way, every time you open Slack, your eyes go first to the Key section and it’s much easier to focus on what really matters before checking everything else.

Repeat the process for all the channels in your sections…

Here’s what an organized Slack with sections looks like:

The good thing about sections is that you can collapse them, and when there’s something unread, it gets highlighted, so you quickly know where your attention should go.

As you can see, there’s a huge difference. To achieve this, you just have to organize things well—and Slack is a really great tool for that.

🇪🇦

The Use of Unreads

🇬🇧

Another super useful thing about Slack is how easy it is to mark conversations as unread so you don’t forget to come back to them. If someone mentions you in a channel and you see the message at a bad time—maybe you’re busy, in a call, or can’t do what they’re asking right now—you don’t have to trust your memory. You can simply mark that message as unread so Slack shows it again as if you hadn’t seen it.

For example, let’s say you were tagged in a channel, you quickly opened it, but you can’t take action in that moment. All you have to do is right-click on the message and select “Mark unread.” That way, the channel will show up with the unread badge again, and later, when you’re ready to focus, you can go back to your unreads and handle it without losing track of anything important.

And that’s it—you can leave the message for later and it stays highlighted, like I did with a message inside this channel.

🇪🇦

Threads

🇬🇧

Slack threads are useful because they keep conversations organized instead of turning the channel into chaos. When everyone replies directly in the channel, messages about different topics get mixed and it becomes hard to know who is answering what; with threads, all replies stay attached to the original message, so each topic has its own “mini-chat.” This keeps the main channel clean and makes it easier to follow or ignore conversations depending on whether they’re relevant to you, and it’s great for focus and async work because you mostly notify only the people involved instead of the entire channel. If someone is in another time zone or offline, they can come back later, open the thread, and see the full context in one place—original question, discussion, and decisions.

To answer a message in a thread, hover your mouse over the message and choose the option Reply in thread.

And the channel looks like this—nothing complicated when you’re having multiple conversations under the same channel. That way, you can stay organized and get much more done than you would without this.

Also, any thread where you’re mentioned or involved, and that you haven’t read yet (or that you manually Mark as unread), will appear at the top of the Threads view, so you can jump straight to the important stuff without hunting in channels. If you don’t have time to reply in the moment, just mark the message as unread again, and that thread will stay in your Threads list as a visible reminder to come back to it later.

🇪🇦

Mute Channels

🇬🇧

Muting channels in Slack is super useful when you’re in a lot of spaces but only need to pay attention when something is really for you. When you mute a channel, it stops shouting for your attention: no more constant notifications for every new message. The channel is still there, you can open it whenever you want, but it behaves more like “background noise” instead of interrupting your focus all day.

The best part is that even if the channel is muted, Slack will still notify you when someone mentions you directly (@you) or uses a keyword you care about (if you’ve set those up). That means you don’t miss anything important that actually needs your input, but you’re not dragged into every minor update or side conversation. In short: muting channels lets you keep your sanity, stay focused on what matters, and still be reachable when someone really needs you.

Let’s suppose you want to mute the a-test channel. You just right-click on the channel and click on Mute Channel.

And that’s it—that way you mute the channel, and if someone mentions you directly, you still get notified.

🇪🇦

Huddles

🇬🇧

Slack huddles are useful because they let you jump into a quick, informal voice (or video) chat without the friction of scheduling a meeting or sending a calendar invite. Instead of going back and forth with long message threads when something is getting confusing, you can just start a huddle in the channel or DM and talk it out in a few minutes. People can join and leave freely, you can share your screen if needed, and once you’re done, the conversation naturally ends and you go back to async communication. It’s perfect for “hey, let’s sync on this quickly” moments without turning everything into a formal Zoom call.

You start a huddle with someone or with the whole channel by clicking on the huddle icon in the top-right corner of the channel.

🇪🇦

Pin a Message

🇬🇧

Another really useful Slack feature is the ability to pin messages in a channel so important info is always easy to find. Instead of scrolling and searching every time you need that one link, document, or decision, you can just pin the message and it stays saved at the top of the channel for everyone. For example, if someone shares the Zoom link for a recurring meeting, the SOP for a process, or the main tracking sheet for a project, you can click on the three dots on that message and select “Pin to channel.” After that, anyone can go to the channel details, open the Pinned section, and instantly access the key messages the team has decided to highlight.

🇪🇦

Bookmarks

🇬🇧

Bookmarks in Slack are the strip of shortcuts at the top of a channel where you keep all the “high-signal” stuff the team uses all the time. Instead of hunting through history, people just look at the bookmarks bar and click. In that area you can surface things like important links (Notion docs, Sheets, dashboards, Zoom rooms), Slack canvases (project hubs, meeting notes, playbooks), and even grouped or “folder-like” collections where related resources live together.

Bookmarks are useful because they turn a noisy channel into a workspace with a clear front door: “Here are the key docs, tools, and references for this channel.” New joiners instantly see what matters, and the team always has one consistent place to find specs, SOPs, trackers, and other pinned-type resources—without searching or scrolling.

🇪🇦

Directories

🇬🇧

Directories in Slack are like the “map” of your workspace: a central place to discover people, channels, and sometimes apps without already knowing their names. The most useful part is the channel directory, where you can see all public channels that exist in the workspace, along with their descriptions and member counts, even if you’re not in them yet. From there, you can quickly spot teams, projects, or topics relevant to you and join those channels with a single click (or request access if it’s private). This makes it easy for anyone—especially new joiners—to find the right spaces, avoid duplicate channels, and plug into the conversations that matter.

🇪🇦

Archive Channels

🇬🇧

Archive Channels in Slack are how you turn an active-but-noisy workspace into a clean, focused one without losing any history. When a project wraps up, a client offboards, or a topic simply stops being relevant, you can archive the channel so it disappears from day-to-day traffic and sidebars, but all the messages, files, and context stay safely stored and searchable. Instead of keeping “zombie” channels around that distract people and clutter the workspace, archiving gives your team a clear signal: “This work is done, but the record still exists if you need it.” New teammates don’t get overwhelmed by dozens of stale channels, and anyone can still go back to past discussions, decisions, or assets via search—so you keep the learning and documentation, while removing the noise from your active workflow.

Here is how you do it:

1. Click on the top bar of the channel

1. Go to settings, scroll down, and you will se the option of Archive the channel, just click on it.

🇪🇦

Custom Slack Reactions

🇬🇧

If you always react with the same 2–3 emojis, it’s worth setting them up as one-click reactions. That way, when you hover over a message, your favorite emojis will be right there, and you won’t have to open the full emoji picker every time.

To customize them:

1. Open Slack preferences

   • Click your profile picture in the top-right corner.

   • Click Preferences.

   • Go to the Messages & media section.

2. Enable one-click reactions

   • Scroll down until you find “Show one-click reactions on messages”.

   • Check the box to turn it on.

   • Make sure Custom is selected (instead of the default set).

3. Choose your favorite emojis

   • Click on each emoji shown in the one-click reactions row.

   • Select the emojis you want to use instead.

That’s it — now when you hover over a message, your custom emojis will appear as quick reactions, ready to click.

🇪🇦