The Internet is teeming with Slack hacks to increase productivity. Currently, and for the foreseeable future, Slack is evidently the top real-time chat app on the market. And naturally, productivity in the workplace is an ever-present concern.

Every employee, in a variety of industries, comes into work – or logs in to work, if working remotely – wanting to be productive and to do a great job. Therefore, Slack hacks are a great way to take full advantage of this great collaboration tool.

Any team that starts off without Slack is often dazzled by the functionality and power of the platform. In fact, once a team gets comfortable with Slack, they start developing their own ways of using it. Hence, Slack hacks are developed and shared through increased use and discovery. Yet, it’s not always easy to find the best Slack hacks to increase productivity. Therefore, we have put together a quick list of 10 Slack hacks to help you and your team improve productivity.

An Image Is Worth A Thousand Words

The aphorism is well known because it is true. Indeed, GIFs aren’t only a fun way to communicate in the workplace. They can be a genuine time-saver on Slack.

Install the Giphy integration to share a variety of random GIFs with your team members. Next, just use the /Giphy [emotion, word, or phrase] command and pick the right GIF for the situation on hand.

Bring Up Your Search Game

A great Slack functionality is that all conversations, messages, and files are easily searchable. Even when conversations move at a rapid pace, it’s fairly simple to get the information you need in no time.

In the search box, type in:channelname, to search through messages and/or files in a specific channel only.

Type in:name, to search through direct messages with a particular user.

Type from:me to view all messages you’ve sent, anywhere in Slack.

Type from:username to look through messages from a specific person in any channel or direct message.

Type has:link to narrow your search to messages that contain a specific URL.

Simplified HR With Vacation Tracker

Keep track of leaves, time-off, sick days, vacations, and more, all in one place. Right in Slack, teams can make requests that managers can approve in seconds. Leave management has never been so seamless or looked so good.

Like Giphy, Vacation Tracker is also a Slack integration. It’s also simple to install and use. It’s a huge Slack hack, as far as HR software’s concerned, mainly, because it requires no additional training. It’s just that user-friendly.

Try it for free for 14-days and see for yourself. We assure you that it will alleviate administrative leave-management tasks and therefore increase productivity on your team.

Create To-Do Lists On The Go

Slackbot can set reminders to help you keep track of what you need to get done in a day. To activate the Slackbot, type /remind into any text box, followed by your task. However, this is a personal productivity-boosting tool, as only you will be able to see the reminder.

Then, to review your list of reminders, simply use the command /remind list. From there, you can mark certain tasks as complete or delete the ones that have expired.

Quickly Collapse & Expand Images

When conversations get very heavy and include a ton of files or images, it can hinder productivity. This Slack Hack should help to resolve that.

In fact, you can collapse any images and video by using the /collapse command. If you’d like to take a look at the visuals again, simply enter /expand to make them reappear.

A Quick Guide to Text Formatting

Want to make sure your text stands out?

Here are some useful shortcuts to format text in Slack:

For emphasis: To create bold text, surround your word or phrase with *asterisks.*

To italicize text, place _underscores_ around a section.

To strikethrough certain words, use tilde to surround the text.

Finally, to create lists, select “Shift” + “Enter” to add a new line.

Always Adjust Your Status

This one is more common sense than a real Slack hack. In order to make sure your team is aware of your status, change it whenever possible.

If you have to step away from your computer, make it clear by adjusting your status. To quickly toggle between “away” and “active,” use the /away command.

Add Notifications For Keywords

Slack can send you notifications about specific keywords or phrases used in any messages you have access to. This could be particularly useful to someone managing a specific project or team.

To adjust notifications for a specific key work or phrase, select your name from the top left corner, then select “Preferences” from the drop-down menu. From there, select “Notification Settings” and scroll down to “Highlight Words.” Finally, in the text box, add words or key phrases that you’d like to be notified about.

A Faster Way Of Sending Private Messages

Slack is optimized for group discussions, but sometimes it’s necessary to take certain issues offline. Indeed, switching to a private message is a great Slack hack to avoid annoying the entire group with a question that concerns just one channel member. It’s also common sense.

Hence when you are in a team channel and want to quickly follow up on a question in a private message, use the following command: /msg @user [your message].

Connect Your Google Drive To Slack

This one might already be a given, but Google Drive and Slack complement each other perfectly. Many teams use Google Drive daily to collaborate on files online.

Slack can easily integrate with Google Drive, so that your team can have the ability to read and index imported files and perform searches in your Google Drive database.

In short, Slack is capable of so much that it’s hard to uncover all the features you should be using to improve productivity. We believe that the key is to continually learn and try new things!

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Kristina Ousmanova

Kristina recently left behind fast-paced life of Human Resource Business Consulting to freelance as a Content Writer. A regular Vacation Tracker contributor, she can be found working remotely from her home in Montreal, usually while eating a variety of snacks.