Key rules and tips to gain efficiency and optimize self-organisation while working on your laptop. First of all, please re-read carefully ‣ as it explain the very basics and core principles on which your personal organization should rely.

💬 Communication channels

Two types of communication channels exist: synchronous (phone call, instant messaging, such as Slack or Whatsapp), and asynchronous (inbox-zero type, such as e-mails or Notion tags). In both cases, the management on the notifications generated by such channels is key to your individual productivity

Master your notifications, don’t become their slave.

There are two dimensions about a notification:

the content of the notification, which is basically a task to do, just added on-top of your inbox-zero routine
the fact that it’s popping or not. In other words, a notification can
1. be disruptive (e.g. appear as a sound, a banner or a badge…), and therefore disturb you; or
2. be silent, and therefore only require your attention once a day during your routine, bundled when your dedicated time for inbox-zero has arrived.

⇒ You must choose carefully which notifications are popping, and these must be very rare! Popping notifications include icon badge. Asynchronous communications (an e-mail for instance) should never interrupt you on what you are doing. Master such channels by defining dedicated time slots in your calendar to check them and tackle some of them (typically called a ”focus session” or “inbox-zero session”).

Group 3 (2).png

Group 2.png

Channel	Recommended setup	Comments
E-mail	No popping notifications	Please refer to ‣ to learn how to master e-mails.
Notion	No popping notifications
Calendar	Notification 2min before each event. Deactivate invitation/confirmation emails.	Please refer to ‣ to setup your Calendar properly.
Slack	Popping notifications for direct messages and mentions only	Can also be silent, it is your call. Overall, you must actively decide which channels are allowed to disturb you and which are not (never hesitate to mute notifications).
Whatsapp	Popping notifications for direct messages only. Disallow group notifications.	- Never hesitate to mute temporarily or permanently a 1to1 chat if your interlocutor sends too much messages. It doesn’t mean you ban them, it simply means you will take the time asynchronously to reply to them, rather then seeing each message popping one by one.

Archive group conversations you don’t want to see anymore, if you don’t want to leave the group.
Overall, pick maximum 1 instant messaging app where notifications can be active (zero works perfectly fine as well). All others should be silent. | | Other apps | No popping notifications | Minimize the number of apps you use, your life will be way easier. Ask people around you to communicate with you via your preferred channel, rather than being reachable through every social app that eventually exist. In other words, drop the FOMO. |

<aside> 🔇 You should unsubscribe to all e-mail notifications of all these apps (ie: e-mails saying “you have a new notification on Notion” or “someone just tagged you in #random on Stockly slack workspace ”), otherwise its twice as work, for no reason.

</aside>

Mute useless notifications

Only subscribe to the ones that you want to be receiving. If you receive a notification that you shouldn’t be receiving, spend the necessary 10 seconds to unsubscribe, to gain some time in the future (like an unwanted e-mail newsletter). The payoff will be immediate.

Also, take the necessary minute to create an automated rule when you do several times the exact same action in your mailbox. Here again, the payback both in terms of time and mental load will be extremely quick.

You can hide the notification counter on Notion, the count of notification, the count of Notifications in the tab and Notion’s AI in the browser (open toggle to see the detailed tutorial) 👇

<aside> ⚠️

Don’t forget ‣! Removing notifications from your view can only be done in accordance in strict compliance with Inbox Zero.

</aside>

How to hide Notion notifications and Notion AI in the toolbar on the left

Questions and roadblocks policy

<aside> 😃 Whenever needed, always feel free to ask all the questions you need of course! The policy described below is just made to smoothen and optimize communication for all.

</aside>

In order to optimize communication as well as quiet time to work, it is recommended by default to respect the following principles regarding questions. When a problem or a question occurs:

Follow the below sequence to try to solve your issue:

graph LR
1["🧠 Try to understand alone
(e.g. rethink, check 
documentation, Google,
ChatGPT)"]
1--if not solved-->2["🤝🏼 Ask a team member
who has the same
experience level as you"]
2--if not solved-->3["🤓 Ask a more experience
team member"]
3--if not solved and urgent-->4["🎩 Directly ask
Team Leader"]
3--if not solved and not urgent-->5["☀️ Ask in Daily"]

If you can continue to work on the topic or on another topic → if it is not urgent and you couldn’t quickly unlock by asking team members then write the question down in you Daily toggle to discuss it during the next Daily.

If you are stuck on all topics or if it is an emergency / high priority → go directly to the relevant person to unlock the situation