A corporate messenger is designed to help you exchange information with coworkers and clients very quickly and efficiently. Instant messaging is faster than phone calls, and unlike emailing, you can get an immediate response. Still, instant messaging can easily get out of control. Quick questions sent by IM can turn into long chats, and answering messages can really break your focus. There are some simple things you can do to use IM to your best advantage.
Restrict Messages to People on Your Contact List
Adjust your privacy setting so that only people on your contact list can message you. This will keep random strangers, and other people you don’t need to talk to, from bothering you and wasting your time. But remember that when you want a new person to message you, they will have to prearrange it some other way, such as by email.
Edit Your Contact List
Restricting IM to those on your corporate messenger list won’t help if you have a hundred people on there. To really cut down on wasted time, you will need to limit contacts to those you really need to keep in touch with. Keeping it to ten or twelve people is a good rule of thumb.
Use Different IM Log-ins for Friends and Work
One way to maximize efficiency is to keep your corporate messenger for work use only. That way you will be offline to your friends while you are at work, and they won’t bother you. Your pals are probably more likely to have long chats with you than coworkers are, so this will really cut down on distractions.
Let People Know When You are Busy
When you are working on something that requires a lot of concentration, set your status as “away.” You can also add other status alerts such as “busy,” “in a meeting,” and “out to lunch.” That way people will have an idea how long they will have to wait for you to be available. Also, if you want to be available for quick questions but not long conversations, just be sure to let the other person know you don’t have time to visit when they message you.
Use Invisibility
If you need to ask someone a question, but you don’t want everyone to know you are online, just use the “invisible” setting. This setting allows you to IM one person at a time, and everyone else will still see you as offline. Someone was thinking when they invented that one!