Slack’s CTO on Fighting the Attention Economy: Why Turning Everything Off Is Sometimes the Only Way to Think

In a technology industry defined by constant alerts, instant replies, and the expectation of permanent availability, Parker Harris is making a blunt assessment about the cost. He notes that sustained thinking is becoming harder to protect, even for the people building the tools that power modern work.

Harris, chief technology officer of Slack and a cofounder of Salesforce, says the challenge of concentration has intensified as digital collaboration platforms embed themselves deeper into daily routines. Meetings stack up. Messages pile in. Calendars and inboxes begin to dictate the rhythm of the day, often crowding out time for deliberate, high-value work.

“Sometimes my day is driven by my calendar or driven by my inbox or what’s coming at me,” Harris told Business Insider.

His response is not rooted in elaborate productivity systems or rigid scheduling frameworks. Instead, it is about restraint. When Harris needs to focus, he removes stimuli altogether. Notification sounds are switched off. His phone is turned face down and placed out of view.

“I hate that knock sound or any other sound,” he said, explaining that even passive visual cues can pull attention away from deep work. “I don’t want to see my phone.”

The approach reflects a broader reality Harris acknowledges: Slack, by design, operates in what he describes as an “interrupt-driven” environment. Messages are meant to be seen. Collaboration happens in real time. But he draws a clear line between receiving information and being compelled to respond immediately.

While Harris typically keeps notifications enabled, he does not feel obligated to address every message the moment it arrives. That discipline, he suggests, is increasingly essential in workplaces where responsiveness is often mistaken for productivity.

“We all need to find a way to concentrate,” he said.

For Harris, deep work requires intentional isolation. When he needs to think through complex problems, he enters a specific Slack channel, internal planning document, or long-form strategy file and immerses himself fully. The shift is deliberate: one task, one context, one outcome.

There are exceptions. If Slack itself faces a critical issue, or if Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff reaches out, Harris says he will immediately change course. Those moments, however, are defined by urgency rather than habit.

“Unless there’s some fire coming at me, like Slack has some issue, or Marc Benioff wants to talk to me,” he said, “I’ll drop what I’m doing.”

This tension between constant connectivity and meaningful focus sits at the center of Slack’s evolving product strategy, particularly as the company rolls out a new AI-powered version of Slackbot. The upgraded tool, launched Tuesday, is designed to help users navigate the very overload that collaboration platforms have helped create.

Slackbot is being positioned as a personal work agent embedded directly into the platform. According to Slack, it will surface relevant context across conversations, help users track notifications more intelligently, and assist in prioritizing which messages and tasks actually require attention. The aim is to reduce cognitive load, not amplify it.

Harris says the broader objective is to shift employees away from a reactive posture — constantly responding to whatever appears next — toward a more proactive way of working.

“Slack is where work gets done,” he said. “We’re going to continue to tackle the productivity challenge. We want to make employees more productive.”

The rollout comes at a time when companies across the tech sector are betting that AI can tame workplace complexity rather than worsen it. Harris is careful, however, to frame Slackbot as an assistant rather than an authority. He advises users to be explicit about context, audience, and desired outcomes when interacting with the tool, to cross-reference its outputs with other data sources, and to review responses carefully before sharing them.

Those guardrails mirror Slack’s own internal philosophy. AI, Harris suggests, should help workers decide what matters — not demand more attention simply because it can.

The paradox is difficult to ignore because Slack, a platform synonymous with workplace chatter, is now positioning AI as a filter against distraction. Harris does not see that as a contradiction. Instead, he frames it as an evolution driven by necessity.

As digital tools multiply and work becomes increasingly fragmented, focus itself has become a scarce resource. Harris’s personal habits — silencing notifications, hiding his phone, carving out protected time for thinking — underscore a central lesson emerging across the tech industry: which is, productivity is no longer about doing more, faster. It is about choosing when not to engage.

In that sense, Slack’s CTO is not arguing against collaboration or connectivity. He is making a narrower, more pointed case — that in an always-on workplace, the ability to disconnect, even briefly, is now a core professional skill.