Slack Lists

Slack Lists is an add on app from Slack to help you manage projects and tasks. Lists is a great way to keep you in the Slack environment for more than just conversations with you team. It's included on any Slack paid plan, it's not worth upgrading just for this feature, but it's 100% worth a try if you already have access to it.

Lists is a great tool to keep track of tasks, you can attach files to a task, assign team members, set statuses and due dates, basically everything you want from a task management solution. Even though Slack claims it will, Lists will not replace a project management system. There are limited options for the columns you can add, and there is no cross-task dependency or other standard project management features.

The biggest issue I have with Lists is that they are disjointed from the rest of Slack. Here are two blatant examples:

1. Where are my Lists??!

   They live in the Files section of Slack along with Canvases and actual files. You can filter down to just see Lists, but there's no easy way to quickly access your lists. You can Star a list, but that just adds it to the Starred section of Files, not the main Starred section on Home.

2. What's happening on my Lists?

   When someone tags you in a thread on a List (it's quite confusing), the notifications don't appear the same way as if someone tags you in a normal thread. Same thing for someone assigning you a task on a List, or pretty much anything else. You have to remember to go check your Lists.

Notifications do show up in the Activity tab of Slack, so if you use that it does feel somewhat integrated. Many Slack users never open that tab, so if you're one of those you'll either need to start using Activity or constantly check your Lists for updates.