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!

‘I love your posts and pictures!’, they said

‘Oh, thank you,’ I said. ‘Now theres a heap of them together ... in the one place.’ 

I’ve curated a collection of ideas, posts and imagery from the last year or so and published them in ‘Better Ways of Thinking and Working’. 

In this era of change, uncertainty and complexity, how are you adopting better ways of thinking and working? 

What are these better ways, anyway … and how do you get started?

In this 180 page full colour collection of practical and mind-shifting essays, you’ll find inspiration, insights and a path to better.

It also features the practical, creative and inspiring hand-drawn visuals that accompany many of my ideas. 

When you need a shot of insight, a change of perspective or a reframing about how you could do things, possibilities are on every page. 


‘Better Ways of Thinking and Working: How Changing The Way You Do Things, Changes What You Can Do’. 

Get it here

Your brain loves closed captioning

It seems captioning has taken off among the non-hearing impaired — and for good reason! 

The subtitles on that film or series you’re watching 
- help boost retention 
- improve comprehension 
and 
- help fill the gaps when someone talks over the dialogue! 

It’s proving effective for people learning a new language, for children building their reading skills and can lift levels of engagement in those with conditions such as Autism Spectrum Disorder, ADHD and Mild Cognitive Impairment. 

For many other reasons too, this mixed mode of taking in information is booming. 

We know people love watching a YouTube video with the sound off and taking in the captions. It’s booming elsewhere on TVs and screens the world over. 

Are you a subtitles fan? 

Read more about the boom in this article.

Bringing 3 skills together

A skill on its own is good. Another skill... even better. Three skills? Three times the goodness! 

The skills and capabilities we have work well on their own. But when they’re combined and integrated - even better. 

Working with a group of business analysts recently, we took the three skills of :
- questioning 
- facilitating
and
- visualizing 
and integrated them. 

Beyond just using the skills on their own individually, one then the other, then the other ... we used all three at once. Integrated. 

Engagement was better. 
Elicitation of requirements was easier. 
Progress was faster. 

These three skills can work well with each other, leverage each other and make our roles and challenges easier. 

For the team of business analysts, it was an experience I call a ’skills lift’.

Greater confidence and capability. 

And an exponential return on one, two, three skills, multiplied and amplified when they’re working together. 

When everything is important

‘What do I do first - everything is priority one!’, said Wendy. 

‘Have you visualized your work?’, I asked. 

‘I’ve got a to do list. Is that visual enough?’, she said. 

‘Does it include everything... everything you have on your mind?’

Wendy said, ‘Well, no. It’s just got the things I need to do today.’



And there it is ... the thing that makes us feel like everything is important. 

The partial to do list. The list for today only. 

When we only capture some of what we need to do, we capture the immediate and pressing, and it’s all important. 

But if we capture everything we need to do - yes, everything - we create a more realistic collection. 

Looking at everything, it’s clear some of them aren’t as important or don’t need to be done today. 

If we haven’t visualised the work to be done, we are going by what’s in our head or our inbox and that can feel like everything is important. 

Until you truly capture everything, you won’t know. 

We get distracted by the noise of so many tasks bumping into each other, gathering importance and urgency from each other - even when they don’t deserve it! 

Get it all out. 
Visualize it all. 
And then pick a top 3, 5 or 10. They’re the priority.