There's a great rule of thumb for workplace communication mediums I saw long ago. It was something like this:
- Email: Not urgent. Expected response: ~1 day.
- Chat: Somewhat urgent. Expected response: < 1 hour.
- Text: Shit is on fire. Expected response: Immediate.
Building on the points OP makes re the problems thinking one line at a time in chat, in this little mental model there's a whole lot of daylight between email and chat. And there's lots of problems with email that make it not a great communication medium for semi-urgent things.
My sense is that we need a better primitive inside chat platforms to differentiate between "this is important and we need to have this discussion now" and something closer to email-ish pace.
- Email: Not urgent. Expected response: ~1 day. - Chat: Somewhat urgent. Expected response: < 1 hour. - Text: Shit is on fire. Expected response: Immediate.
Building on the points OP makes re the problems thinking one line at a time in chat, in this little mental model there's a whole lot of daylight between email and chat. And there's lots of problems with email that make it not a great communication medium for semi-urgent things.
My sense is that we need a better primitive inside chat platforms to differentiate between "this is important and we need to have this discussion now" and something closer to email-ish pace.