5 ways to beat meeting overload

5 Ways to Beat Meeting Overload - or zombie meetings will get you!

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Fixing Broken Work/A New Skill/Meet Less/Café Work Life/Productivity Theatre/Work Week Insights

Fixing the broken bits of work 

Will AI fix work? It’s a great question that new ways of working people are asking and wondering about. 

In Microsoft’s latest Work Trends Index Report we get to see how much we’re:

- drowning in information 

- detesting meetings … still

- wishing work had no meetings at all, and 

- innovating, not. 

Artificial intelligence provides opportunities to relieve us of

▫️heavy work

▫️dreary work

▫️preparatory work

▫️first draft work 

and 

▫️routine/repetitive work. 

And this could give us more time to be creative in our work. 

Although the promise of ‘if this then that’ in the history of work always delivered just another load of other work for us to do in its place.)

Grab a coffee, sit and read the report. Better still, get AI to do something for you. 

Depending where you are on the AI curve, you could get AI to:

▫️read it for you

▫️provide a 100 word summary 

▫️select the three most relevant quotes 

▫️generate a list of six action points 

▫️tell you which parts you should be most worried about

▫️start working automatically with you on your work day, schedule, meetings, presentations and reports 

▫️redesign your work flow to incorporate AI wherever possible 

and 

… head to the beach. 

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A new skill to learn 

No part of work is immune from the requirement to learn some new skills now and then. 

Any skill to be learnt can take a little time. And some of us give up when the first 10 mins experimenting or trying don’t go so well! 

We can be perfectionists when we don’t meet our own expectations of it working perfectly … immediately. 

If you’re still clutching onto your electric typewriter, floppy disk or dot matrix printer, keep on scrolling. 

But otherwise, there are some opportunities to tinker, play and begin learning how to make use of artificial intelligence. These are skills connected with the use, guidance, prompting and re-prompting, assessing and editing of AI. 

Skills like : Questioning, briefing, querying, framing, directing, finessing, checking, editing — they’re all skills we can be applying for working with the next tech that’s here. 

Give it a little time. No need to rush or be impatient. Bit by bit. Try it again. Read a bit more. Try something different. 

Learning is not a perfect process.

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Meet less. More happy. 

It’s one of the quickest ways to free up time in a packed schedule. And an immediate way to release some of the pressure of having too much on. 

Delete, remove and decline meetings. 

I’ve called this out as a key strategy in my book ‘Sync Async: Making progress easier in the changing world of work’. 

More research data is revealing the sweet spot of meeting less and the benefits to be gained. 

Three ways you can meet less for more happy are:

▫️check in messages rather than check in meetings 

▫️meet only when absolutely necessary, and

▫️let people opt out. 

These are some of the modern evolutions to work and changes occurring to the way we do work. 

See more in this piece from Inc. Australia by Minda Zetlin 

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NOW SHOWING at Productivity Theatre 

Quick … read something, look busy. 

Leave your laptop on, open and the screen set to never sleep. 

Anecdotes, research and reports about how employees are ‘performing’ to look busy, could be in response to recent layoff fears or perhaps the pressure of returning to the office.  

But this show has been going on for decades. It’s a classic!

Ron, a colleague I worked with years ago had some curious advice for me on the first day of my new job. He said, “Here’s how to look busy around here: walk around the office, factory or site quickly … with speed and pace … swing your arms. 

“Carry with you a single piece of A4 paper with something, anything printed on it,” he said. “Always make it look like you’re going somewhere, to see someone, to do something.” Thanks Ron. 

He was the laziest person I’d ever worked with. He did so little at work, counting the weeks, months and years until he could get a redundancy payout and retire with his beloved fishing rod. What a couple : Ron and Rod. 

A colleague in another organisation used to slot in cross-country skiing on the nearby slopes when their employer thought they were out on the road seeing clients and making sales calls. 

I know of people who have an app set to automatically tap their keyboard so it looks like they’re logged on and on duty. The range and examples of ‘slacking off’ at work are broad indeed. 

Appearing busy when we’re not isn’t new. 

Maybe there’s just less people walking around offices holding pieces of paper these days because most of their work is online, digital and tech based. We just need to gaze into a screen. 

The creative and contemporary performances screening in Productivity Theatre today are:

▫️rapidly replying to emails to show you’re there

▫️attending pointless or irrelevant meetings

and

▫️scheduling emails to be sent at later times.

Whatever you do — or don’t do — at Productivity Theatre, it’s all a daily performance. 

Read more in this piece by Chloe Berger in Fortune 

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The café work life

Also becoming known as ‘work from hospo’ (hospitality) this third space or third place is another option in the working from home era. 

Read more in this piece by Tracey Cheung in The Age or The Sydney Morning Herald to see why cafes, restaurants and other hospitality options are working so well for some remote workers. 

There are benefits such as :

▫️Comfort

▫️Convenience

▫️Social Connection 

▫️Coffee, Catering and Snacks

▫️A new location for new ideas

▫️Ambience, mood and vibe

▫️A mental reset

and more. 

For the venues, there’s an income stream at times they might usually be a little quiet.  

For me, the ambient noise of the buzz of a cafe is a clear winner. 

The whirrrrr of the coffee machine, the clatter of crockery and the light chatter of people - oh, and the often barely noticeable music - has shown to be the most magnificent combination for idea generation and creativity. 

It’s why apps like Coffitivity have been popular, to try and recreate that buzz and ambience. 

Are you are third place kind of person? 

And a shout out to the team at Third Place who have made moving between venues via a membership even easier. 

How to decline meetings/The work environment matters/Visual mapping in schools/Dreamers dreaming/Audio book recording/

Decline 1 in 3 meetings

Decline, delete or at least press the ‘Maybe’ button on the invitation. 

The point is, don’t automatically ‘Accept’ meeting invites — you’re creating too much synchronous work (in real time work with others) and it’s taking up too much time in your schedule. 

We might accept meeting invites by default, automatically, habitually. 

Real time meetings, chats and other ‘now’ happenings are thieves of time, attention, energy, progress and motivation. Real time should be saved for the really, truly important stuff. 

This year I’m sharing techniques on how to deliberately #meetless

Do you think declining or deleting an invitation is being rude? 

If so, before you accept or delete, ask a clarifying question like: 

• why am I invited to this meeting; could you give me a bit more information please?
• could I see the agenda for the meeting please and then I’ll decide whether to attend
• why is this meeting being called
• I’m not available to attend this meeting; how else can I contribute to this work? 

Many workplaces simply don’t provide an alternative way of participating, contributing or being involved in work … unless you’re there, at the meeting. 

And that’s not inclusive enough. It’s a dated way of working. 

But as times are changing and modern work is evolving, more people are realizing the cost of meetings and actively questioning them. 

The exclusion and drain of meetings — the time, effort, energy, resources and motivation — ARE worth calling out and pushing back on. 

Meeting culture has gone unchallenged for too long. 

It’s time to #meetless

Start by:

🟥 removing 1 in 3 meetings

🟥 declining 1 in 3 invites

🟥 questioning 1 in 3 requests. 

Meet less and you’ll make more and better progress.

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Three Driving Changes Impacting How We Work Today

Thank you to Leaderonomics for sharing this article on the changes to work. 

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Visual Mapping Techniques in Schools

I worked with the heads of department and wellbeing staff at Strathcona Girls Grammar recently. 

No PowerPoint. Woo hoo!

What did we do? Whiteboards and visual mapping tools for better meeting processes, greater creativity and deeper connections with each other … and students. 

Here are those committed and dedicated professionals, hard at work, before the students arrive in the next few days for the new school year. 

It was such a pleasure to work with them with these visual collaboration tools. I returned later in the week with a session for all staff!

If you're an educator, teacher or work in schools, get in touch to find out more about BWOW Schools - Better Ways of Working. 

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Dream on dreamers

Our brains aren’t meant to operate at optimal efficiency. All the time. 

Here are a few ways to offload your thoughts:

🌕 allow yourself to lose focus. We can’t keep at it all day.

🌕 let the mind wander to daydream and access your creative ideas/

🌕 try cognitive offloading. When you’re overloaded, offload by writing things down, typing them out or … I love to use the Voice Memo on my phone. Then it’s gone from your mind. Aaaah!

Don’t let cognitive overload burden you. 

Know a few techniques like these that will help you not just overcome overwhelm … but outsmart it — and be at the ready for the next time it happens. Read more in this article in Fast Company.

✨See more in my book ‘Argh! Too much information, not enough brain: A practical guide to outsmarting overwhelm’. It’s available in paperback, ebook and audio book. 

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Where work gets done

- A grey cubicle with no line of sight of other people, everyone baking under fluorescent lighting. 

- Walking outdoors listening and talking. 

- A cafe-style set-up with chairs and tables and a buzz about the space. 

- A lounge environment with comfortable seating, smooth edges and a menu to choose from. 

- A park bench in the shade with a view of the playground and the kids playing. 

The world of work and where work is done keeps evolving. 

With devices, software, apps and our smarts, many of us can work from a variety of locations, environments and spaces. 

And yes, many people don’t get to access this level of flexibility. But increasingly, people want greater control over the ‘where of work’.

They know the environments in which they work best. They have preferences for how things work for them and where they like to do paid work. 

It includes things like:

▫️Location and accessibility

▫️Arrival facilities or neighbouring facilities 

▫️The physical space available to set up, move about and spread out (hello to the spreader-outers!)

▫️The features, fittings and design of the space

▫️The equipment, furniture, power and resources available 

▫️The overall ambience and vibe of the space …

 This list isn’t exhaustive but it can help reveal that the things important to me, may not matter so much to you, and what’s a must for you, may not be on my list at all. 

On a recent visit to meet with the good people at Steelcase in Melbourne, I got to see more of the contemporary design elements, new furniture, equipment and tools that make for a modern workspace and workplace. 

Businesses are refreshing and updating their spaces — whether staff come in to the office frequently or not — so there are enhanced spaces for:

▫️Conversation

▫️Collaboration

▫️Silence

▫️Privacy

▫️Creativity

▫️Productivity

▫️Focus

▫️Recharging 

… and 

▫️Choice. 

The variety and choice of space in which to work helps match our mood to the task, our personality to the space, and our energy to the outcomes. 

The variables are many when we consider HOW people want to work and WHERE they do their best work. 

The refreshing of workspaces, workplaces and work environments is booming. And ‘where’ is part of the decision making process for many candidates in choosing to apply or accept a job role. 

Someone controlling where you work is about control … not about setting up the best possible working environment for where work gets done. 

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Testing 1 2 … 

I spent two half days in February 2023 recording the audio for my book ‘Sync Async: Making progress easier in the changing world of work’. 

It's great to work with the team recording at SquareSound in Port Melbourne — it’s where I’ve recorded two of my other audio books ‘ish’ and ‘Argh!’  

They know what they’re doing. It’s a pleasure to work with a professional team and to take your ideas from out of your mind, onto the page and then in to an audiobook. 

There’s been a lot of interest in the ebook and paperback for ‘Sync Async’ and many questions about whether there would be an audiobook … so I decided an audiobook would be a ‘yes’! 

Use your Audible subscription to download and listen. 

⭐️What’s async work all about? 

Have a read of this article in Leaderonomics 

Or this article in Forbes 

Or get the ebook or paperback of ‘Sync Async’ from wherever you get your books. The audio book is coming soooooon!

What your creativity is trying to tell you

When you’re distracted from a task or chase bright shiny things, do you reprimand yourself and wish you had more discipline? 

At times we do need this focus and attention. 

But how about following the distraction… ok, not right then, but later? 

This distraction could be your creativity trying to alert you to your clever thinking and ideas. 

Here’s what to do: 

Make a ‘side note’ — a note in the moment of the distraction from the main task path you’re on. Jot it in an app or notepad — and return to your original task. 

Then later … allow time, space, a moment to explore, wonder and be curious about your notes about the distractions. Let yourself follow them up, deliberately chase the brightness and see where it takes you. 

You may think ‘I’ll never get anything done’ or ‘I never have time later’. 

But these thought associations we may see as distractions are often examples of curiosity and creativity trying to pop up throughout our day. 

Instead of squashing, hitting or ignoring them — or being angry at yourself because you can’t stay on task — invite the distraction or thought for long enough to capture it in a side note. 

It’s a note you can follow up, chase down or wonder about later. Or not at all. 

Creative and ingenious thought is there; give it somewhere to land when it rises rather than labeling it a distraction or bad. 

It’s actually very good, creative good. 

Struggling? Juggling? Drowning? Argh!

These experiences of overwhelm can be a common part of a normal day or week in our life. Yes, the world can be an overwhelming place. 

• We might have an emotional experience of being overwhelmed. 
• We can experience the ‘too much on’ of workload - too much to do and not enough time in which to do it. 
• Or we might feel like we’re submerged under an endless pile of information, reports, books and reading.

At other times we can just be plain 'drowning in' it from a wicked combination of all three: emotions, workload and information. 

In today’s world, it’s these three that can be the cause of repeated and unending overwhelm. And it’s not good for us. Burnout and health issues are waiting. We need to find ways to acknowledge our emotions, manage our workload … and filter all of that information. 

Our overwhelm CAN be outsmarted. Get the powerful techniques I've explained in my book ‘Argh! Too much information, not enough brain : A Practical Guide to Outsmarting Overwhelm’ you’ll find: 

• new ways to make sense of overwhelm,
• new ways to work, and 
• new ways to cope with information. 

You’ll be all over overwhelm… it won’t be all over you!