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Famously GitLab, Doist, Basecamp are companies that work ‘async first’.
While remote first means you don’t assume people share the same location, async first means you don’t assume they share the same time.
If people work at different times, synchronous communication (like live meetings) becomes impossible.
Strange concept for me as a human, growing up talking my whole life.
Why do companies work ‘async first’?
Hiring top talent is one of the top challenges for companies.
As a first step, remote-first hiring opened the door to other cities.
And async-first enabled then to open the door to hire from other time zones.
As the Posthog Handbook says:
“You are not expected to be available all the time”
Remote meetings are strange, they often miss a clear agenda, disrupt deep work, drain mental and physical energy, and at the end only one person is talking while others listen.
At the end little is documented. And I mean little good documentation, not your AI transcripts that lack context outside of the meeting.
Benefits of Asynchronous Communication
And there a lots of other benefits that e.g. GitLab laid out in their handbook.
- Boosts autonomy
- Improves efficiency
- Is inclusive
- Lowers stress
- Encourages thoughtfulness
- Creates context
Writing is slower than talking
When talking, the processing work is pushed to the receiver.
When writing, the processing work is owned by the sender.
Writing forces clarity — certainly why Amazon uses a 6-pager system.
As Paul Graham says:
“Writing is thinking. It’s the process of figuring out what you think, and discovering gaps where you thought you understood something but didn’t.”
Inclusivity wins
Similar to meditation, diversity, equity, and inclusion programs (DEI) show positive effects productivity (ref). Almost like it would be a positive drug package leaflet.
Async lets:
- Neurodivergent people work during their focus windows
- Parents balance care work
- Night owls work when they’re sharpest
How to
Clear Intention
Why do you communication in the first place?
Whats action do you expect to be followed by your communication?
Examples: Require approval, FYI, seek understanding, seek feedback, find consensus, poll
Make it clear.
Format
You can see, hear, smell, taste, and touch.
At digital work we mostly, we mostly use our sight and hearing sense to process information.
Using a image often helps, as “one image says more than a thousands words”.
A video of your desktop tells a thousand words > 24 times per second (see Loom).
Adding your face to the bottom left, adds the information of tone and intention.
This makes a high bandwidth communication.
Adding these layers can improve communication drastically.
Rules of thumb
- Use writing or video (I saw little use for voice only)
- Always use video when demoing work
Context
Assume the reader knows nothing.
Provide links, Linear tickets, charts, Slack threads, everything.
Channel
I highly suggest the 'Public by default’ principle (similar to Posthog’s proposal).
I’d redefine public here to ‘within the company’ to accommodate if your company does not comply with strong public first policies.
Type | Description | Channels |
Public | product, roadmap, strategy, decision making | Company wide accessible team-based Slack collaboration
#[team]-collaboration |
Internal | Team only FYI, financial performance, security, recruitment | Internal Slack channels
#[team]-internal |
Private | Compensation, disciplinary issues | 1:1s |
Social Meetings
Maybe a hot take from my side: I’m a fan of separating work calls from remote social activities. Sparing out the ‘how was your last weekend’ and moving it to it’s dedicated slot can be quite liberating.
This text was written 90% by a biological neural network (BNN).