How to Stop Virtual Meetings From Taking Over Your Schedule
They’re the eight words that can derail the entire day’s schedule for digital nomads and remote workers:
“Can we jump on a quick Zoom call?”
The fact is, virtual meetings are rarely ‘quick’ – and, all too often, they pose a significant obstacle to your ability to focus and work deeply.
While working remotely means some virtual meetings are inevitable and necessary, there are steps you can take to minimise the impact of ongoing meetings, as well as alternatives to the traditional meeting that can help you take back control of your time.
1. Schedule ‘no meeting’ time blocks
How many times have you been trying to focus on a particular creative or cognitively demanding project, only to have your flow constantly interrupted by virtual meetings?
The ability to enter a flow state and conduct deep work relies on having sufficient, distraction-free time in which you’re not context-switching to a totally different task, such as a meeting.
This is where ‘no meeting’ time blocks can help. By scheduling set periods of your day or week that are entirely free of meetings, you can protect your productivity and retain your focus.
For example, you might set a rule that you don’t book meetings before midday, leaving you free to focus on deep work tasks in the morning. Alternatively, you may want to dedicate one meeting-free day per week that you know you can use for distraction-free work.
A 2022 study by Harvard Business Review found that organizations that implement no-meeting days or time blocks see improved productivity and reduced stress among their remote employees.
2. Book in post-meeting action sessions
A one-hour meeting doesn’t just take an hour. While you may spend 60 minutes on a Zoom call with your colleagues, there are still additional tasks that will need to be actioned after the meeting, such as adding items to your to-do list, consolidating notes, or sending follow-up emails.
The problem is, we tend to schedule only the meeting time itself in our calendars, expecting we’ll be able to move seamlessly on to our next task the minute we hit the ‘leave meeting’ button.
To avoid post-meeting tasks disrupting your carefully crafted schedule, always set aside a 15-minute block immediately after the meeting to tackle quick or time-sensitive activities in order to clear them from your to-do list.
Working through these items straight after the meeting means the information is still fresh in your mind. For any tasks that can’t be completed within the 15-minute block, simply add them to your to-do list so they can be cleared from your head.
3. Capture meetings more efficiently
Another reason why meeting-related tasks tend to take up more time than we allow for is that we fail to capture meeting information effectively. The additional cognitive drain that comes from trying to recollect what so-and-so said about something-or-other leads to mental fatigue and inefficient processes.
To avoid confusion and memory strain, be sure that you’re recording your meetings in a way that makes it quick and easy to refer back to anything that was discussed. While video and audio recordings can be useful, interactive meeting transcriptions are even more beneficial.
While video conferencing apps like Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams come with built-in transcription capabilities, specialised transcription solutions can offer greater accuracy and advanced functionality.
For example, products such as Rev, Descript and Alice come with interactive editing features that let you highlight, comment and add notes to your meeting transcripts.
4. Stop ‘meetings by default’
We’ve all been involved in the infamous “meetings that could have been an email”. And though virtual meetings remain an important way to discuss, interact and share between colleagues and clients, they’re often not the only (or most efficient) way to accomplish these objectives.
The ‘meeting by default’ attitude tends to prevail in most organizations, but breaking free of this mindset can enable us to save significant time and reduce the wastage (of time, energy and resources) that comes with virtual meetings.
Here are some meeting alternatives that could allow you to skip those far-too-frequent Zoom calls:
Video recording: Self-recorded videos can be a great way to share information, allowing recipients to view the recording at a time that’s best for them. Video recording software such as Loom makes this incredibly simple.
Collaboration software: Collaboration tools such as Slack can reduce the need for traditional meetings, allowing team members to collaborate and share information in real time.
FAQ document: If you regularly need to engage in meetings that cover the exact same ground for different people – such as explaining how a particular product or service works – consider creating a detailed FAQ document that can be shared with whoever needs it.
Project management software: With the right project management software, you can keep project stakeholders updated and in the loop on items that may once have required a meeting to discuss.
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