1 underused Slack feature that will make your work life easier

I cannot begin to calculate how much of my life I’ve spent on Slack.

Every (non camp counselor) job I’ve worked has used the messaging platform. In media and tech, it’s ubiquitous. And yet, despite being extremely familiar with Slack and its various functionalities, I haven’t used an incredibly useful tool until this week.

If you, like me, live at least eight hours per day on Slack, then you need to know this little trick. It’s called the history tool. Effectively, it lets you jump around to your most recent conversations and channels. It makes navigating work so much easier, because you aren’t scrolling around like mad through dozens of channels.

Let’s walk through how to use it.

First go the upper left corner of your Slack app or browser (note: this is using a computer not the mobile app). You’ll see a little clock right next to where you’d exit out of the window. The button looks like this.

There’s your button.
Credit: Screenshot: slack

Once you click the little clock bam, it’s everywhere you’ve been recently in Slack. The red box shows what that looked like for me. On the Slack desktop app the History feature shows up to 15 conversations or channels you recently visited.

These are all my recent personal conversations and channels I’ve used.
Credit: Screenshot: Slack

Now this doesn’t seem like much. But it makes work so much easier. You know when you’ve got three different conversations going and you can’t keep up? You’re scrolling, clicking, scrolling, and it’s overwhelming.

The history tool lets you bop back and forth with ease. All you do is click on the conversation or channel you desire and it jumps right to it. Right at the top of your screen. Easy as pie.

Perhaps you’ve been using this tool forever, but a bunch of folks here at Mashable just discovered it and improved their work lives. So if you, like us, learned a new trick today, go ahead and enjoy.