Messy drawer of communication
There's a lot of laundry in a 4 kid family so I often fold up the kids' clothes and put it next to their door while they're sleeping. (Our evenings are very exciting) I subscribe to the Marie Kondo method of folding which allows you to stack clothing vertically like this:
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Not even leaning against the stairs! 4.76 MB View full-size Download
then it's easy to pick up the stack and place it nicely in the drawer so that you can see every shirt you want and quickly pull it out without disturbing the others.
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Nice and neat 👌 3.05 MB View full-size Download
However, as you might have guessed, children are not actually that good at keeping things nice and neat. quickly after putting the clothing into the drawer... things turn to chaos.
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Oh no... 😱 2.41 MB View full-size Download
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Later 4.24 MB View full-size Download
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Most recent 3.58 MB View full-size Download
Generally, we try to keep the shirts on one side and the pants on the other but when the kids are in a hurry they quickly come unfolded and pile up on each other. Because things are on top of each other and there's no division between the different types of clothing you have to dig* in order to find the thing that you wish to wear*.
The other thing that happens is **as soon the drawer is messy **that becomes the status quo and whenever we give them clothing to put away they throw it in without any regard to our nice folding. 😫
You may say, "well that's just how kids are! They don't care that much about things being neat and tidy", and to some degree that's true, but I would argue that it's actually just a design problem. Here is the top drawer of the kids clothing
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This is the natural state, without me fixing it up for the picture 2.49 MB View full-size Download
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Same drawer, weeks later 3.39 MB View full-size Download
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Even later 3.21 MB View full-size Download
As you can see it's not totally perfect, but it's tons better! Basically what happened was one day I cut up some cardboard boxes and I taped them together to make dividers in the drawer. This way that the pajamas, underwear, and socks all had a place to belong. There is even a division between my daughter and my son so that his pajamas and her pajamas don't get mixed up with each other.
Shortly after making this, my daughter asked me to help her re-fold a piece of clothing so she could re-insert it into the drawer properly, and generally, they've respected this drawer far more than ever before.
Why dividing makes a difference
There are many reasons why this works. One is the drawer's size has been divided. Before the inside of the drawer was this huge space compared to the small clothing which meant lots of room for the clothing to fly around when kids are looking for something. Now there's a high cardboard wall that helps prevent the socks from getting buried underneath other clothing and make sure the stacks of clothing don't fall over. It also forces you to make a choice when you go to put clothes away because the categories are not so general anymore.
Also, because things are more upright and supported it's easy to find the exact piece of clothing you want by just viewing the side of it which is usually enough to see some of the T-shirt graphics. This is important because now the path of least resistance is the right one. Because it's the easiest way they can go directly to the "pajama with Elsa on it" with minimal mess.
Things like underwear are not exactly easy to fold and often get messy, this is more okay because at least is staying within its own category. If you need to find a piece of underwear it's always in the same general category so there's no need to disturb other pieces of clothing.
Messy, unfolded Communication
Now that I've shown you how boring my life is as a parent, you deserve to know why I have done so. Well, I think the way we communicate is often like this drawer. Slack (or any chat tool) is like a chest of drawers for communication. Each channel is like a single drawer. They are a very broad category where communication can go. It's nice when you're in a hurry, which people almost always are, then they can easily throw things in without thought or effort.
Also, the ceremony of neatly folding up your communication in a thread is nice but hardly expected. Chaos and speed are normal. Announcements, comments, jokes, and memes are all given essentially the same precedence.
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](https://storage.3.basecamp.com/4495901/blobs/20296b9c-8303-11ea-8d35-a0369f740da4/download/image.png)
You see jokes, announcements, and everything gets put in the same stream. Some communication put in threads, but all of it is very unstructured. 454 KB View full-size Download
Basecamp on the other hand looks is structured like my cardboard drawers. First, it has the main screen, which is like the chest of drawers, then it nests 2 or 3 levels until you get to each individual comment.
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](https://storage.3.basecamp.com/4495901/blobs/f0dfc064-8304-11ea-b812-ecf4bbd6f9d0/download/image.png)
Attachment options... "Chest of Drawers" view (Channels)
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](https://storage.3.basecamp.com/4495901/blobs/06729ba4-8305-11ea-a76d-a0369f740db3/download/image.png)
Attachment options... "Cardboard sections view" divides different types of communication. Long-form from short-form, status updates from chat. Todos from direct messages.
The message board is a great example of "neatly folded" communication as well. The structure doesn't allow people to just make a comment anywhere, there is a clear division between a comment, and the start of a thread. Also, the introduction of a tightly scoped title helps you to know what you're getting into before you start reading. It doesn't make the bold assumption that everything is important, it asks you to decide before diving in.
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](https://storage.3.basecamp.com/4495901/blobs/f30f06dc-8305-11ea-98e6-a0369f740dfa/download/image.png)
Attachment options... Each one is sort of "neatly folded" with a proper title and a small preview of the content. This allows you to quickly see what you're getting into before you participate
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](https://storage.3.basecamp.com/4495901/blobs/cd8744e2-8305-11ea-b1e7-ecf4bbd72a88/download/image.png)
Attachment options... Inside the Message board post you can see a clear division between the announcement or question and the comments
This is just one example, todos are also nested in this way, so that conversation doesn't spill into a single chatroom but stays scoped to the todo at hand:
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](https://storage.3.basecamp.com/4495901/blobs/e80e5f02-8306-11ea-9ab9-a0369f740db3/download/image.png)
Attachment options... The blue numbers indicate comments
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](https://storage.3.basecamp.com/4495901/blobs/0c0b676a-8307-11ea-b191-a0369f740fe6/download/image.png)
Attachment options... After going inside the todo, there's lots of space to discuss things, and describe the to-do in great detail.
To help visualize this you can see how slack is really simple categories with very deep amount of messages.
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Infinite List V.S. Finite tree 504 KB View full-size Download
At first this might seem that Basecamp is far more complex because there's a lot more places to to put conversations and to some degree that is true. However because you're constantly going up and down back and forth through the tree It starts to become like a town that you've lived in for a long time. Because there's so many "signposts" (titles) and because every project structured this way it's easy to find pretty much any piece of information inside of it.
Slack is kind of like a long meandering walk through the woods. You are just constantly moving forward so you have no time to really get to know the territory just constantly seeing new things which all start to look the same after a while. If somebody ask you where you saw that bear at you could maybe describing a little bit but you would have to take a long meandering walk to find it again. Hopefully you would know it when you saw it but because your brain hasn't had enough time to memorize it's placement and it's constantly being replaced by new things it's unlikely you're ever going to see that again.
Why does this matter?
Now that I've taking you through several weird analogies let me help you try to understand why all of this is important. Although Basecamp themselves have documented why group chat can get the job done but you're probably going to be a lot more stressed in the process. Why is that?
Well in the main reason is because in team chat you really only have one way to tell what people are talking about and that is to read everything. It's perfectly practical when you're small team of people were there isn't that much conversation going on. However has a hot topic appears the treadmill starts to pick up and go faster and faster as each person tries to insert their opinion make sure that they don't miss out on the conversation any channel can become a black hole of FOMO. After all going to see this place in the timeline again.
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