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For you who prefer listening to reading, this post is also available as an episode of the ""Done!"" podcast:

Two sides to the coin

If you have these dis­cus­sion streams open, you keep up with what is going on and what the ​“oth­ers” (col­leagues, project par­tic­i­pants, and the like) are up to, think, and want. How­ev­er, if you try to keep up with every­thing when you real­ly need to con­cen­trate on your oth­er tasks, you will become frag­ment­ed and it will take much longer to get these tasks done. It sim­ply makes your work more dif­fi­cult instead of easier.

It depends on what it’s about

So, when should you keep the chat open and when should you stay away from it? Some guid­ance can come from Mark, Gon­za­lez, and Har­ris, who in their study ​“No Task Left Behind? Exam­in­ing the Nature of Frag­ment­ed Work” found that inter­rup­tions or sen­so­ry cues relat­ed to the task we are cur­rent­ly work­ing on are often per­ceived as help­ful in what we are doing, while inter­rup­tions asso­ci­at­ed to some­thing com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent than the task at hand are con­sid­ered aggra­vat­ing or unwant­ed distractions.

If the mes­sage received in the chat con­cerns the task you want to get done right now, you should be able to keep the chat open with­out being dis­turbed. If it is about some­thing else, clos­ing the chat for the moment will help you con­cen­trate on the task at hand.

What if they need to get hold of you?

You might think that one rea­son to keep the chat open, even if the con­ver­sa­tion there is about oth­er things, is that you have made the chat your ​“emer­gency chan­nel” which your col­leagues use to get a quick response from you. How­ev­er, I would rather solve your avail­abil­i­ty by hav­ing select­ed noti­fi­ca­tions turned on for the chat. That way, you will be alert­ed when some­thing actu­al­ly ​“is up” with­out hav­ing to see every­thing else that hap­pens there.

Do this

If you rec­og­nize how the chat can both help and hurt, try the rule of thumb deduced from the Mark, Gon­za­lez, and Har­ris study today, which we could for­mu­late like this:

• If the con­ver­sa­tion con­cerns what you are work­ing on, keep the chat open. If it con­cerns some­thing else, keep the chat closed (and catch up and respond when it suits you better).

At the end of the day, think back on how it went and eval­u­ate: was this a rule you would be com­fort­able fol­low­ing in the future? Or, do you need to adjust it a bit, so that it ben­e­fits your work even more? Maybe you should keep the chat open more than what the rule sug­gests because it con­tributes to a sense of togeth­er­ness when col­leagues are far away and you miss the pleas­ant small talk?

Con­cen­trat­ed as well as up to date

If you keep the chat open when the con­ver­sa­tion is about the task you are work­ing on, you can con­cen­trate on the right thing, keep up with what ​“the oth­ers” are say­ing, and actu­al­ly get help with what you need to get done — judg­ing by the study men­tioned above. You get the best of both worlds if you ask me.

How do you do it?

What use­ful strat­e­gy do you have for when to have the chat open and when to keep it closed? Please write and tell me. I’m curi­ous to hear your take on it. 

(Still feel like there are too many mes­sages com­ing in? Also check out how to take con­trol of the flow of chat mes­sages)