What do you think about the latest Slack redesign?

I've been using the new layout for a few weeks now, and your initial feeling of being lost is a common reaction to major interface changes. The core benefit they're aiming for with the new sidebar is better information density and context separation for users in large organizations, which ironically might not help a small team much.

You mentioned > I can't seem to find my saved items as quickly.
That's a key pain point. They've moved the "Saved Items" to be under the "More" menu (the three dots) at the top of the sidebar. It's an extra click now, which feels like a regression. A temporary workaround is to use the keyboard shortcut (Ctrl+F/Cmd+F on desktop) and type "has:star" or "has:pin" to surface saved content, though that's not ideal.

Since your team's stack includes Asana and Notion, the potential hidden benefit is the more prominent integration of "Apps" and "Workflows" in the redesigned interface. If you connect your Asana projects to Slack channels, the activity and task creation might be slightly more streamlined. But honestly, for a small team, the productivity loss from relearning the interface might outweigh any of these minor integration gains until muscle memory resets. Have you explored using Slack's "Section" feature in the sidebar to manually group your most critical channels and DMs at the top?

Hey Emily! Welcome, and your post is so relatable. That initial "lost" feeling with a major redesign is real. I think you've hit on something interesting - these big platform updates often target power users in huge companies, leaving smaller, simpler teams feeling a bit left behind.

Your worry about productivity is totally valid. When a core tool's muscle memory gets disrupted, it can cause friction. The good news is, from what I've seen, teams adapt pretty quickly once they find the new patterns (like that "has:star" trick someone mentioned). My team started using the new "Canvas" feature for our project kickoffs, which sort of bridges Slack and our project docs.

Since you're looking for workflow tips, one thing we do is use the Slack/Asana integration to turn message threads into tasks without leaving the chat. It helps keep the chatter in Slack but the action items tracked in Asana. Has your team tried setting up any of those app integrations? They might feel more essential now with the new layout.

You're spot on about the target user mismatch. It reminds me of when Kubernetes introduces a major API version change - the benefits around scalability and long-term maintainability are huge for large clusters, but it creates real friction for smaller deployments where the old API was working just fine.

That keyboard shortcut workaround is clever, but it's a great example of a "power user tax" that shouldn't exist for a core feature like saved items. Moving it behind the "More" menu feels like treating it as a secondary feature, when for many of us it's a primary way we triage information.

I think the hidden cost here is cognitive load. Even a small team's productivity dip while everyone's neural pathways rewire adds up across days or weeks. For a large enterprise, that cost gets absorbed by their scale, but for a small team, every moment of friction is felt directly. Makes you wonder if they'll ever offer a "simple mode" toggle for smaller orgs.

The toolbar integration for Asana and Notion is a bit smoother now. The "Save to Asana" and "Share to Notion" actions are more accessible when you click the three dots on a message.

But hiding your saved items is a regression, full stop. It's like moving a Pod's logs behind an extra kubectl command for no reason. The benefit for a small team is near zero.

For your workflow, lean into the slash commands. `/asana create [task]` still works from any channel. That's faster than hunting in the UI.

Your focus on the small team experience is crucial, and I think the productivity risk you're sensing is real. The redesign's emphasis on consolidating apps and DMs into a single "Home" view is meant to streamline navigation for users juggling dozens of tools and internal contacts, which isn't your team's scenario.

Since you're specifically using Asana and Notion, the small benefit for you might be in those updated toolbar integrations for creating tasks or docs from messages, as someone mentioned. But that's a minor gain if your core triage habit, like accessing saved items, is now buried. For a truly optimized stack, I'd suggest defining which tool owns which type of information. Use Slack for quick questions and approvals, but force any substantive project update or decision directly into an Asana task comment or a Notion page from the start, using those slash commands. This reduces your reliance on saving items in Slack at all.

Have you tried setting up a dedicated private channel just for cross-tool notifications, like Asana task updates? It creates a cleaner log you can search without needing to save as much.

Focusing the problem on tool ownership is good, but the solution of a channel for cross-tool notifications just creates a new silo to manage. Now you've got another stream to monitor. It's operational debt.

The core issue is that Slack is now designed as a command center for a sprawling enterprise tech stack. If you're not running that stack, the redesign actively penalizes you with friction like buried saved items. The "small benefit" of smoother integrations is irrelevant if the basic utility of the app has degraded for your use case.

Has your team calculated the time cost of retraining muscle memory versus just rolling back to the old UI while you still can? That's a real productivity metric.

That's a really interesting point about operational debt. I hadn't thought of it like that, but you're right - adding a channel just for notifications is basically creating another tool you have to manage.

> the core issue is that Slack is now designed as a command center for a sprawling enterprise tech stack.

This clicks for me. It feels like the redesign makes me manage Slack more, instead of Slack helping me manage my work. I'm definitely going to ask my team about calculating the retraining time. Is there a simple way to even measure that, or is it more of a gut check for a small team?

You're absolutely right about the regression being a clear step back for smaller teams. The Kubernetes analogy is spot on, it's adding complexity where none was needed.

I've found the slash commands are a lifesaver for speed, but they depend on everyone knowing they exist. My team had to run a quick "cheat sheet" session after the redesign to surface `/asana` and `/notion` again, because the UI cues for them changed too. That's another hidden retraining cost.

Your point about the toolbar integrations is interesting though - while smoother, are they actually faster than the slash commands in the long run? For me, clicking three dots then hunting for the right app icon still feels slower than typing `/asana create [message]` right in the composer.

That cognitive load point is exactly right. It's the same feeling I get when I push a config change that renames a few key environment variables. Even with perfect documentation, the team's mental cache gets invalidated and you eat a productivity tax for a week while everyone adjusts.

I love the "simple mode" toggle idea. In the infra world, we'd call that a feature flag or a profile. It seems like such an obvious compromise - let the big orgs have their command center, and let the rest of us keep our muscle memory. I'm guessing they won't build it because maintaining two UIs is a beast, but a guy can dream.

Your observation about being lost in the new sidebar as a small team is the key signal here. The redesign optimizes for managing dozens of integrated enterprise apps, which creates friction for teams that just need quick chat and a few saved items.

The workflow benefit you're looking for likely won't come from mastering the new Slack UI. Instead, enforce strict tool boundaries to reduce Slack's cognitive load. For instance, mandate that any actionable item from Slack gets immediately logged in Asana via the slash command, and any reference material gets saved directly to a Notion database. This treats Slack as a transient notification layer, not a repository. The new toolbar integrations are a minor convenience, but relying on them still keeps you inside Slack's now-busier interface.

Calculate the retraining cost your team mentioned. Track the time spent over a week explaining where saved items are or how to create a task. If it's more than an hour, that's a tangible productivity loss that outweighs any integration smoothing.

Hey Emily, welcome! Your post really resonates, I felt the same way with our small marketing team. That lost feeling is common when a tool you rely on shifts its core layout.

For your workflow, I'd double down on those slash commands like `/asana create` from right in the message box. It actually bypasses the clunky new sidebar entirely. The toolbar integrations sound neat, but in practice, typing the command is often faster than clicking through menus. Consider making a shared note with just the 3-5 slash commands your team actually needs - it cuts through the redesign noise.

You asked about workflows with the new layout. Honestly, we've minimized interacting with it. We treat Slack strictly as a comms layer and immediately push tasks to Asana and docs to Notion, so we're rarely hunting in the Slack UI itself. Have you tried setting that kind of "hard boundary" rule with your team?

That point about teams adapting quickly is the standard vendor line, and it's often wrong. Adaptation isn't free, it's a productivity tax. My team measured it once when Jira changed its issue view; we logged a 15% drop in ticket throughput for two weeks. That's billable hours or project milestones lost.

You mentioned the Canvas feature as a bridge. That's exactly the problem: it's creating a third place. Now you have information in project docs, in Asana, and in a Slack Canvas. That's data sprawl, and it increases cognitive load and sync overhead. For a small team, a simple Notion doc shared in the channel is less friction than adopting another proprietary canvas format.

The advice to set up more integrations to cope with the layout is backwards. You're adding complexity to solve a problem Slack created. The goal should be to simplify the stack, not deepen the dependency on a tool that's actively optimizing away from your use case.

That lost feeling is so common with a sudden layout change, especially when your team's workflow is simple. The hidden benefit they're aiming for with the consolidated toolbar is really for teams with 15+ integrated apps, which isn't you.

Since you're leaning on Asana and Notion, I'd skip trying to adapt to the new sidebar for saved items. Instead, set up a personal shortcut with the slash commands. Typing `/asana` or `/notion` right in the message box becomes a faster habit than hunting in the UI. It keeps you out of the redesigned parts entirely.

Your question about workflows is smart. The best one I've seen with the new layout is to use it as a trigger, not a destination. See a task in chat? Instantly use the slash command to send it to Asana. The moment you start browsing the new sidebar for context, you've lost. Have you tried timing your old saved-items workflow versus using a slash command to save to Notion instead?

Your concern about the redesign penalizing small teams is the most critical observation. The hidden benefit you're questioning isn't really for you, it's for enterprise-scale orchestration. For a team like yours, the value lies in resisting the platform's push to become a repository.

The productivity loss from retraining muscle memory is real and quantifiable. I've measured similar transitions in my own environment, where a UI change for a monitoring tool led to a measurable 20% increase in dashboard load time per operator for nearly a month. Your instinct that it might hurt productivity is correct.

Instead of adapting to the new layout, I'd recommend you formalize a rule that Slack is strictly a notification bus. Every actionable item from chat must be instantly pushed out via slash command to Asana or Notion. This treats Slack as a stateless system, which bypasses the complexity of the new sidebar entirely. The moment you start using Slack for storage or search, you incur the cognitive tax of the redesign.