Home is where to start, and it is not a dashboard. It sits in the sidebar alongside Channels, DMs and Hubs, and switching to it does not close the conversation you were reading.
That detail is the whole design. You can triage what needs attention while the thread you were in stays open beside you, rather than losing your place to check whether you have lost your place.
What it gathers
Everything with a claim on you, in one list: unread conversations, direct mentions, and threads you are following.
The point is that a mention in a channel you rarely open is as visible as a DM. Without Home, the busiest rooms get read and the important messages sit in the quiet ones.
Working it
Read down it, deal with what can be dealt with, and leave the rest. Anything needing more than a moment is better made into a task than left as an unread badge.
Home is a queue, not a filing system. If something has been sitting there for three days, it is not going to be handled by being seen a fourth time.
Your own space
Your own row at the top is a private space: notes to yourself, links you want later, drafts.
Useful precisely because it is not a real conversation. Nothing here notifies anybody or expects a reply.
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