Communication Overload: How to Manage Notifications Fatigue in 2025

Ever since the big shift from office to remote work in 2020, many distributed teams have been grappling with information and communication overload. The problem is worsening by the day, as teams turn to an increasing number of communication software to sustain the information flow they enjoyed in the office.

According to the 2024 State of Business Communication report, workers saw a 73% increase in the variety of communication channels between 2023 and 2024. If your team uses a mix of messaging tools, project management, intranets, and email to keep operations ticking along, employees are likely struggling with communication overload. 

To shed light on the problem and offer actionable solutions, I had an insightful and engaging chat with Zachary Wright — Founder and CEO at Grapevine Software. In our conversation, Zachary shared why communication overload is rampant and provided practical management tips. Let’s dive in.

What is Communication Overload? 

Communication overload happens when employees receive too much information at once. In a digital workplace, this means bombarding employees with excessive meetings, emails, and messages. The overload overwhelms employees, making it difficult to prioritize communication and respond effectively.

Communication overload can take various forms, including: 

• Repeated Information across Channels: Mike’s manager shares the same updates via email, the team’s WhatsApp group, and a project management tool. Mike finds himself re-reading the same information multiple times, unsure if he’s missed any new instructions.
• Constant Notifications from Multiple Tools: Maria works in a remote team using Slack, Zoom, email, and project management tools. Throughout the day, she receives constant pings — messages on Slack, emails from clients, calendar reminders, and task updates. She spends most of her time switching between apps, leaving little time for focused work.
• Excessive Email Threads: John is part of a 10-person project team where everyone replies to emails, even for minor updates. A simple task assignment email snowballs into a 30-email thread with redundant comments, burying the important details John needs to complete his work.

What Causes Communication Overload? 

Every organization is unique. However, there are some aspects that cut across every remote working arrangement. These are some of the causes of communication overload:

1. Rise of Software as a Service (SaaS) and Department Silos

Zach offered an interesting take on how the problem came to be. When teams were in the office, they depended on “specific solutions software. “Every sales team had their customer relationship management (CRM) system. In many cases, marketing teams had their own marketing tools, and then HR had its own platform. 

At first, these solutions served their purpose and worked just fine without causing information overload. But as Zach opines, “these decentralized platforms started becoming an issue with remote work. They created department silos where teams didn’t necessarily communicate effectively.”

Since information wasn’t shared across departments, problems like repeated requests arose. Some employees often had to answer the same questions from multiple teams. Departments or teams also unknowingly worked on similar tasks, causing unnecessary messaging, repeated updates, and parallel conversations. 

2. Proliferation of Communication Channels

As Zach opines, “One of the reasons we see issues like overload, tool fatigue, and burnout is that remote teams are using too many software tools.”  According to the latest statistics, 70% of knowledge workers claim to have been communicating across more channels at work in the past twelve months than ever before. 

The most common channels are virtual meetings, text-based chats, email, and social media. As the number of communication channels continues to grow, employees face an ever-increasing frequency of notifications and messages into the inbox. This often leaves employees dealing with communication challenges like information overload. 

3. Ambiguous Communication Protocols 

Lack of clear guidelines on which channels to use, and when, is another reason distributed teams struggle with communication overload. More often than not, when your communication charter isn’t clear, it leads to misplaced or redundant messages across platforms. 

Take, for example, a team working on a project where communication happens through Google Meet, Slack, and ClickUp. If the team fails to clearly outline when to use each platform, confusion and overload will become the norm. 

For example, a manager might send a task assignment via email but follow up with the same message in Slack “just to be sure.” Later, they mention it again in a virtual meeting. Employees end up checking multiple platforms for the same information, which could have been shared and discussed in ClickUp.  

4. Time Zones Differences

Time zone differences create asynchronous challenges that can lead to communication overload when left unaddressed. When team members work in regions with huge time zone differences, messages are often sent at odd hours, causing a backlog. Employees have to sort through the message log to stay on top of updates and respond to urgent requests, all while trying to stay productive. 

For example, a remote team with employees in New York and Sydney may struggle to align schedules. As the New York employees send in questions and clarifications, the manager in Sydney is probably deep asleep. When the manager is back online, he has a barrage of questions to respond to. 

The misaligned schedules mean that team members have to deal with a pile-up of messages during the work day. This increases the cognitive load for both sides, making it a challenge to keep track of the information load. 

5. Over-Communication

Effective communication is essential for productivity, but excessive communication can quickly drain time and resources. Overcommunication is a result of ambiguous communication guidelines. It happens when team members share the same information across platforms. Statistics show that in the modern era, 69% of employees send the same message multiple times or on multiple platforms every day. 

Overcommunication can also happen when team members share every small update, follow-up repeatedly, or loop too many people into a conversation. Imagine a scenario where team members announce they’ve completed a task on Slack channel. Doing so floods individuals with excessive, often unnecessary, messages and information.  

What Are Signs of Communication Overload

If your company faces the above issues, communication overload may be at play. But even if you don’t see any of the causes, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re safe. I asked Zach what other indicators managers should look out for, and he had this to say: 

1. Drop In Employee Engagement

Zach asserts that, “when everything is important, nothing’s important. That’s how I see information overload happening.” When you have many communication channels in the workplace, employees certainly get an influx of messages and notifications. 

With time, they might start having fewer contributions as they focus on the bare minimum to get work done. Some may resort to turning off notifications to cut distraction and focus on the task at hand. In other cases, employees may turn off the internet connection on their device. 

“Employees think, ‘I can’t handle 20 different notifications every minute,’ and they start ignoring them.“

When you post an important update, only a few employees interact with it. An employee makes an urgent request, and colleagues seem to turn a blind eye. Another sign of declining engagement is remote employees turning off their cameras during virtual meetings. The drop in engagement is a sign of an underlying communication overload issue. 

2. Missed Information

Employees are likely to miss important updates when there is information overload. Such employees find it hard to determine what is important. Critical messages become buried under less important ones, leading to incomplete knowledge-sharing and miscommunication.

Additionally, teams begin to miss deadlines as the real priorities get lost in the noise. You are also likely to see repeated questions arising from emails and meetings. If employees are reaching out to the manager repeatedly for information shared on channels, it could be a sign of communication overload.

3. Fragmented Collaboration

When communication and information is scattered across platforms, it could impact collaboration and decision-making. When notifications and communications become fragmented, it becomes hard to track where discussions happen or decisions are made.

As a result, teams start relying on redundant conversations as they are unfamiliar with where the original discussions occurred. Cases of duplicated efforts are also likely to happen, as one team may be unaware of what the rest is doing. 

4. Decision Fatigue 

When there’s overcommunication, employees have to constantly decide what to prioritize. Zach explains this through the paradox of choice. He says “when there are so many choices, you’d think that it would be easy to select something, but it actually makes it harder.” 

When there’s an overflow of information, it becomes difficult for employees to focus on what matters most. The sheer volume of messages overwhelms their ability to evaluate their importance. As a result, they are unable to make well-thought-out decisions.

Moreover, employees may feel mentally exhausted, hence taking longer than expected to make simple decisions. Judgment errors will also likely occur as employees resort to ‘safer’ decisions or skip crucial details. There is also a likelihood of an over-reliance on leaders or managers to “decide everything,” as employees feel they can’t handle the burden. 

5. Declining Quality of Work

Employees may feel distracted or rushed when pulled into multiple directions by excessive communication. Such incidents prevent them from dedicating time and focus on delivering high-quality work. Employees may resort to quick fixes or superficial solutions as they prioritize speed over quality. 

Problems Associated with Communication Overload

• Physiological effects: Fatigue and stress impact an employee’s well-being. 
• Impact on productivity and teamwork: Teams will likely spend more time managing communications and checking notifications than working. 
• Impact on creativity: Mental exhaustion lowers creativity levels and innovation. 
• Impact on interpersonal relationships: Miscommunication will likely cause friction among employees and strained relationships. 

How to Overcome Communication Overload: An Expert Take

Communication overload can feel like an inescapable whirlwind, leaving teams overwhelmed and productivity in shambles. By following our three-step procedure, you can diagnose the problem, its cause, and devise a unique solution to solve it once and for all: 

1. Diagnose the Problem 

Not every team faces communication overload. The first step is to determine whether your team is facing information or communication overload. 

Assess Team Feedback

• Conduct surveys or pulse checks: Use anonymous surveys to ask team members about their communication, workload, stress levels, and productivity challenges. Such an approach will help you get genuine feedback without fear of victimization. 
• One-on-one check-ins: Have candid conversations with team members to understand their experiences with communication and collaboration tools. Get to know employees and team members personally and devise ways to improve the work relations. 

Analyze Communication Metrics

• Monitor message volume: Check how many messages are being sent across tools like Slack, email, or project management software. Tools like GoogleSpace Analytics and Slack Analytics will give detailed reports for such data. 
• Track meeting frequency: Review how often meetings are scheduled and whether they’re necessary or excessive. Meetings are good but can also lead to low productivity if so many are held. 
• Response times: Evaluate how quickly team members are responding to messages, which may indicate they feel pressure to stay constantly connected.

Observe Behavioral Patterns

• Missed messages or deadlines: Frequent oversights may suggest that individuals are overwhelmed by the communication volume.
• Decline in engagement: Reduced participation in discussions, meetings, or collaborative efforts can signal fatigue. Compare this with a time when you had fewer communication tools or software pieces. 
• Increased errors: Mistakes at work could point to distractions caused by communication overload. Employees or teams that were perfect in their work could now start being careless. 

Audit Communication Channels

• Tool redundancy: Review if multiple tools are being used for similar purposes, leading to duplicated or scattered information. If one tool can perform two roles, then you can do away with one. 
• Channel effectiveness: Evaluate if certain channels are cluttered or misused, creating confusion and inefficiency. The ideal channels should have a good flow. 

Analyze Team Workload

• Task prioritization: Determine if team members are unclear about priorities due to excessive or conflicting communication.
• Time spent on communication: Use time-tracking tools or ask for estimates on how much time is spent reading and responding to messages versus completing core tasks. A 2018 study showed that a typical employee would spend 28% of their time just managing email. You can only imagine how much they will likely spend today with increased communication tools. 

Conduct a Team Workshop

• Encourage open discussion: Hold a meeting or workshop to identify pain points in the current communication system. 
• Map out processes: Collaboratively review workflows to pinpoint where communication bottlenecks or redundancies occur.

Review Work-Life Balance Indicators

• After-hours activity: Look for signs of communication outside work hours, such as late-night emails or messages.
• Burnout signals: Monitor for increased absences, stress complaints, or reduced morale.

2. Evaluate the Cause of Communication Problem

If your organization is drowning in communication overload, it’s time to investigate the why behind the chaos. Uncover the root cause by following these steps: 

Audit Communication Tools and Channels

• Evaluate tool usage: Determine how many tools are being used (e.g., Slack, email, project management platforms) and for what purposes. Redundant or poorly integrated tools often lead to overload. Take, for instance, a remote software development team that uses Jira for issue tracking. The same team could be using Google Sheets for tracking, leading to time wastage and redundancy. 
• Identify communication channel inefficiencies: Check if certain channels are overused for tasks they’re not designed for, such as long discussions happening in chat tools instead of meetings. For instance, a remote customer service team spends hours discussing ticket escalation on Slack threads instead of holding a 20-minute meeting to handle the same. 
• Monitor notification settings: Review the default notification settings to ensure they are not overly intrusive. For instance, a development team gets a push notification for every Jira ticket update, even when it does not relate to their specific tasks. This can lead to notifications fatigue, and team members may even miss important updates. 

Analyze Workflow and Processes

• Review communication logs: Identify patterns by looking at message volume, timing, and response rates. For example, too many messages might indicate unclear workflows. Ideal messages should be concise but informative. 
• Examine meeting practices: Check if meetings are too frequent, too long, or lacking clear agendas, which can contribute to overload. Meetings should not be held because it is the norm but because of issues worth discussing. 
• Audit task management systems: Are tasks and updates being communicated effectively without duplication or unnecessary back-and-forth.

3. Remedy The Issue

Once you identify the root of the problem, you have the insights to devise a unique solution. Whether it’s unclear protocols, excessive tools, or redundant updates, you can find a solution. 

Some of the possible solutions include: 

Weed Out Unnecessary Communication Channels

According to Zach, “Most of the software we have today contributes to tool overload and fatigue because remote teams use too many different tools simultaneously.” If you have been using too many communication channels, select a few essential ones for specific purposes.

Let’s say your marketing team uses email, Slack, Asana, and WhatsApp for team communication. You can consolidate into Slack for real-time communication and Asana for task tracking. This will eliminate redundancy and ensure each message has a designated channel, reducing the chaos of juggling multiple platforms. 

Regularly Audit Tools to Avoid Overlapping Functionalities

Make sure your technology stack doesn’t feature software with overlapping communication functionalities. For example, if you assign tasks in ClickUp and use Slack to share instructions about these tasks, there could be overlap. 

Audit the software’s functionalities and determine how to use them without duplicate communication. Or better, you could ditch Slack and use ClickUp for both project management and team communication. Remember ClickUp offers an app called Chat, which mirrors the core Slack functionality. Using one software will eliminate overlap, curb information overload, and improve productivity. 

Communication tools have evolved, and you can easily find an all-in-one platform for your team’s needs. The ideal platform should allow teams to collaborate, share files, and communicate in one place. Grapevine software, for example, connects your existing apps to a unified platform. It eliminates the need to switch between email, chat tools, and Google Drive to collaborate. 

Establish Clear Communication Guidelines

If your communication is everywhere, create a communication policy outlining when and where each type of communication should happen. According to Zach, a communication policy sets the expectations of employees on when and how they communicate. 

It enables employees to decide what’s urgent or not, and where to go when something is urgent. Clear protocols reduce confusion, ensuring workers know where to find and share information. 

Leverage Asynchronous Communication

If you have teams distributed across time zones, leverage asynchronous communication to curb overload. Zach advises teams to make the most of asynchronous video; rather than sending a simple text or email. He opines that videos create an emotional connection you often don’t get with written communications.

“Whenever you see my face, and I see your face, it’s a real person. It’s not just a text or an email where I don’t have that emotional connection to you.” 

He goes ahead to provide ‌simple examples of how his team uses asynchronous video. “Every single week I would give my team an update — it would be like two minutes. And in some cases it would just be this simple. Here’s an update of the goals we were able to make progress on this week, here are some of the roadblockers we saw.”

Watch our video to learn more insights or read our comprehensive guide on how to balance real-time and asynchronous communication. 

Invest In Employee Training

Your remote team members could be spending a lot of time trying to figure out how to use certain tools instead of sending messages. Employees are likely to become more efficient when they are trained on how to use certain tools effectively. 

Training will help teams understand how to prioritize tasks, differentiate between urgent, and non-urgent communication, and use specific tools for designated purposes. This will reduce cases of redundant or unnecessary messages. Remote tools also evolve. Conduct regular training to ensure that team members learn how to use the new features. 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) in managing Communication Overload

AI is changing how organizations send and manage workplace communication. When integrated effectively, AI tools can automate repetitive tasks, and improve the way users interact and prioritize information.

For instance, AI tools like otter.ai or Tl;dv automatically summarize meeting records and extract actionable insights. Such tools reduce the time team members spend reviewing past meetings to extract important information. Another example is when a remote worker uses ChatGPT to extract the main points in a PDF or any other type of document. 

Platforms like 8Seats, an AI-powered tool for managing employee communication and collaboration, are ready steps ahead in utilizing AI to overcome communication overload. Its 8AI assistant offers real-time and intelligent support to users. For instance, its intelligent information retrieval provides instant answers to user queries. 

Communicate Better, Not More

Effective communication is not about the quantity of messages but their clarity, purpose, and timing. By addressing the root causes of communication overload, streamlining tools, and fostering intentional interactions, you can create a culture that values meaningful exchanges over constant chatter. 

In doing so, teams can work smarter, make better decisions, and enhance overall productivity. I hope the strategies we discussed will help you shift the focus to communicating better, not more. 

FAQs