Feeling "zoomed out" or like you have stepped out of a dark tomb of back-to-back video meetings!? Many remote workers are expressing the same complaint and we know if can take a toll on our individual well-being. Read on to learn how to minimise, manage and reset your approach to video conferencing.
Video conferencing showed a 535% rise in daily traffic in 2020
, so it is no surprise that "Zoomed out" and "I am exhausted, I was in back-to-back meetings" are real complaints, draining our precious energy levels as remote workers, contributing to eye strain and distracting us from work focus through time blocking and deep work.?"Zoom Fatigue"
?is real, in February Stanford researchers documented the causes and confirmed the term validity. Follow the advice below and begin to make positive changes today!
- Say No to too many meetings!?It sounds like the simplest advice but it can be the hardest to do. For some people a FOMO (fear of missing out), combined with feeling they need permission to say No to meeting requests, results in too many meetings in the first place. Use calendar blocking to set boundaries and proactively begin to say no to meetings, where possible.
- Use better meeting norms & etiquette:?Begin with ensuring there are clear no meeting periods that are blocked in your own/team/organisation calendars. Some companies have implemented No Meeting Friday Afternoons, as a start. Also, are there norms for the meeting you accept? A mandatory agenda, for example? Clear meeting roles assigned, like a note taker, host etc. What about the length of the meetings proposed? Setting specific limits of 20, 40 and 50 minutes can support better time management.
- Turn off self-view:?According to?The Vision Council
, more than 80% of American adults use digital devices for over two hours per day. So proactively reduce eye strain and the potential temptation to focus too much on your own reflection and turn off your webcam self-view, which is gentler on our senses. You can also cover your webcam manually. If you feel really exhausted, pop on your video at the start of a meeting and move to audio only for the remainder
- Better to break it up!?In addition to good calendar and time management practices, where you ensure you have comfort breaks between meetings also add in breaks DURING meetings. Suggesting to participants after 30 minutes, "let's take a comfort break, stretch, get some water and reconvene in 5 minutes". Check out my?AudioBook; Better Breaks for Remote Workers >>
- Multi-tasking adds to our exhaustion:?if we attempt to multi-task whilst on a meeting, we are just adding to our potential fatigue, so minimise notifications and endeavour to keep focused on the meeting itself, task or topic in hand
- Improve your meeting “room and view” set-up:?adjusting our own web cam, preparing your background/s, workspace readiness, adjusting lighting and supporting good eye health by potentially wearing special glasses all can help you feel better prepared for video sessions
- Share your learning and bring it to your team:?Once you have taken back some control and are feeling empowered, introduce the benefits of the above to your colleagues and spread the better meetings vibes!
Take on board the above advice and empower yourself today to take back control of meeting fatigue, prioritising your own individual well-being in remote working.
On an additional note on Asynchronous Communications:?Meetings should be about conversations, sharing ideas, reaching consensus and then moving to action, so if we have better exchanges in writing (the premise of Asynchronous Working) – we can also move to minimise the number of live meetings and improve overall remote team workflow and productivity. For an excellent overview, read this?Doist Blog post on Asynchronous Communication.
Article researched and compiled with the support of Stella Gonzalez Alfonso.
If you or your team would like to learn more about the ‘RoRemote’ approach - please?contact me today
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Behavioural Change Coach and Trainer/Executive, Leadership Development/ Emotional Intelligence Assessment, Training and Coaching
2 年Really sound advice, thank you for sharing Rowena - I will be bringing this to my clients in coaching and training - they are totally exhausted from virtual meetings, and some of them are as young as 20's. Another factor is once the business day ends, off we go on our devices for contact socially - so... wow... no escape from the screen = even more exhaustion, then poor sleep and then it all starts again the next day!
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2 年Useful resource on conquering virtual meeting fatigue right here ????
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2 年Eye strain and the resultant migraines are things I am not enjoying about the Zoom Tomb.
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2 年Thanks for sharing Rowena Hennigan. A few years back, remote meetings were conducted just with headphones and without camera (in order to spare bandwidth). It's great to have the video capability for some occasions, but very often having the camera on is simply unnecessary and healthier to have it turned off.
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2 年You make some really good points in your article Rowena.