The Work of Work

  • Comments posted to this topic are about the item The Work of Work

  • I've noticed an increase in the number of meetings I've needed to attend, since the beginning of the pandemic. Through 2020 and 2021 it increased. It didn't double, though. This year has been off the charts for me. Until two weeks ago I was having 5 to 6 hours a day meetings! And I'm not a manager.

    I heard of some companies, in an effort to help their employees cope with the jump in meetings during the pandemic, started to institute one day a week, meeting free days. I loved that idea and wished my employer would have adopted it.

    Steve, you made the observation that many of us do a poor job of accounting for the impact of meetings on our work. That is certainly true of me, and I think all my colleagues. I'm still not sure how to handle that. Today (Wednesday) is my team meeting. We give everyone our status reports. And our boss often passes "down from above" decisions coming our way, rumors and what not. That's the most useful part of our team meetings, as it can have an impact upon us. Anyway, I tend to ignore describing the number of meetings I've attended. I think I'm going to start telling that story.

    Kindest Regards, Rod Connect with me on LinkedIn.

  • I don't know either. I have  2 hr meeting today, actually one that should be good, but a few more in the last week weren't. We do have some monthly read-out ones that I think are good. If I don't attend, I can watch the recording, which is one thing I appreciate for virtual meetings.

  • My most unpopular comment on meetings was:

    "If a meeting involves more than three people or lasts more than ten minutes, you are wasting someone's time".

    When I returned to my old job as a contract DBA after taking an early retirement, part of my agreement was that I would be required to attend VERY FEW meetings.  It was great.

    Rick
    Disaster Recovery = Backup ( Backup ( Your Backup ) )

  • Just last week I added 6 hour "meetings" to my calendar on 2 days a week just to preserve some time to do "proper" work. I can still accept invitations within those times if they look important, but it gives me an excuse to decline the ones I don't want/need to attend. The sense of freedom is amazing!

  • I find that the problem with meetings is that the level of information available before hand is often lacking.

    A clear agenda and desired completion criteria should be a pre-requisite.

    • What is the meeting being called for?
    • What is required of each participant/ why are they being invited?
    • What outcome must there be for the meeting to be classed as a success.

    If it is not worth putting this information together then is the meeting justified?

    My experience is that too many meetings are basically a title and a list of participants.  Calling those meetings at short notice is also prevalent.

    One of the things I like about Slack is that we can have a project channel and we can ask a colleague or handful of colleagues if they can jump on a "huddle".  It works as it is contacting relevant people about a relevant subject.  Its a kind of digital co-location.

     

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