Thieves of time/Broken meetings/Flexibility/Travel Plans

Real time is a thief?

There are better ways of remote working. This we now know.?

After a year or two of rapidly adapting to more remote working, many people have found themselves working longer hours, with more stress, more?interruptions and that general feeling that less is getting done.?

Perhaps we’ve continued to try and work in ‘old ways’ in these new environments and situations.?It’s clear that doing everything (or most things) in real time is robbing us.?

It’s time we flexed our asynchronous muscles and limbered up for another?adaptation!?

In the?Harvard Business Review?article by?Steve Glaveski, ‘Remote work should be (mostly) asynchronous’, the guidance for working asynchronously is to use:?

??Task boards?

??Office hours and scheduling tools?

??Shared documents?

??Instant messaging plugins?

??Email?

These help create more effective cultures of progress, engagement, connection and results.?

It might seem that it won’t, but that’s the sneaky paradox of new ways of working : we may resist trying them because we don’t believe they will work.?

But how will we know if they work unless we try them?

Meet less. Async more.?

That meeting is broken

Yes our meeting culture, habits and structure is broken.?

And it’s not changing anytime soon … or rapidly enough to suit the changing demands the world has for us.?

We still sit in dysfunctional, time wasting, dull and droning gatherings (online and in person) that don’t give us anywhere near a return on our generous investment.?

This is not another ‘meeting improvement’ post.?Let’s look at this from another angle:

?? What if you declined even 1 x one-hour meeting a week??

Do the maths here …?

You’d free up 40-50 hours a year. A full week of work.?

And you’d be free and at choice to work on or do other things.?You need not be out of the loop of the work or be missing in action either.?You could still contribute to the meeting — before or after by :

??providing your written thoughts

??messaging the host/convener

??adding to a shared document.?

This is tapping the power of doing more work asynchronously — at a time and in a way other than a live meeting now.?

Attending more meetings doesn’t make them work better.?Until we start pushing back on some of those invitations or requesting another way to participate and contribute, we allow the dysfunction to continue.?

Choose to tackle this is another way instead of passively attending more broken meetings.?

Work async more frequently, and in ways that suit you.?

My latest book 'Sync Async : Making progress easier in the changing world of work' is landing this month, May 2022.

Flexibility leads to happiness?

Turns out it’s not money that makes us happier at work. It’s flexibility.?

Beyond the changes to remote work in recent years, more changes and opportunities for greater flexibility are coming.?

Might your team, leader or organisation be on board with these changes??

Or might they fear that flexibility will make them lose control of people, places and things connected with work??

One of the biggest opportunities we have for greater flexibility at work is to go to less meetings and work in more asynchronous ways.?

That might mean declining a few more meeting invitations, pushing back on requests for quick chats or not jumping when people want to talk now.?

These are sync or synchronous ways of working, focused on everyone there now in real time.?

There’s no reason to keep working like this when there are brilliant skills, tools and techniques we can apply to create greater flexibility by working more async … at times and in ways that suit us.?

Are you ready for it??

How will you lead your team through it??

My new keynote on Working Asynchronously — based on my forthcoming book ‘Sync Async: Making progress easier in the changing world of work’ is now available.?

I’m taking bookings for the second half of 2022 and into 2023.?Message me to enquire about availability, rates and content to lift your conference or event.?

And be prepared for greater flexibility in the workplace — it’s coming!?Read more in this Refinery 29 article

The burden of Reply ASAP culture?

It’s a burden and a growing one. The culture of ‘Reply ASAP’.?

It’s that pressure to respond immediately we receive a notification, chat, message or email for work.?

And the burden builds when we feel guilt, worry and stress for not responding.?

“Mentally, many workers’ anxiety and depression can increase which could lead to social isolation. Physically, employees can experience a loss of sleep and disinterest in hobbies because they are too focused on work,” says this article in?Verywell?by Zuva Seven.?

In short, one solution is to have better boundaries. But this can put the responsibility back on employees.?

“The real change starts with employers. The most impact comes from how a supervisor or business owner sets their expectations early on.”

Are you a Reply ASAP kind of person??

There are some tips and suggestions about how to make some changes, discuss with your employer or take other actions to reduce the ASAP response and improve boundaries and cultures.

Travel along with me …

I’m heading off on one of our big trips across outback Australia from Melbourne to the Oombulgurri lands in northern Western Australia and back again.?

Connect with me on Facebook (lynne.cazaly) or Instagram (@lynnecazaly) if you’d like to follow along and see the sights and beauty of this incredible country.?

I’ll share stories and images (when connection permits) over the next 6 weeks.?

It’s time to rest and recharge for what’s next.?

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That's this week's digest.

Lynne

Lynne Cazaly helps individuals, teams and businesses transition to better ways of thinking and working.?

Lynne is an international keynote speaker, multi-award winning author and a master facilitator.

She is the author of the books:?

• Argh! Too Much Information, Not Enough Brain: A Practical Guide to Outsmarting Overwhelm
• Better Ways of Thinking and Working: How Changing the Way You Do Things, Changes What You Can Do
• ish: The Problem with our Pursuit for Perfection and the Life-Changing Practice of Good Enough
• Agile-ish: How to Create a Culture of Agility
• Ideas Book: A Journal of Templates and Tools for Thinking
• Leader as Facilitator: How to Engage, Inspire and Get Work Done
• Making Sense: A Handbook for the Future of Work?
• Create Change: How to Apply Innovation in an Era of Uncertainty
• Visual Mojo: How to Capture Thinking, Convey Information and Collaborate Using Visuals. ? ? ??

Lynne is an experienced radio broadcaster, presenter and producer having presented more than 10000 hours on-air. Her background is as a communication specialist, having lectured in under-graduate and post-graduate programs in several of Australia's Universities and consulting to different industries and sectors on change and transformation.

Lynne can help you think better, make sense of information and handle the realities of workplace overwhelm and information overload with her clever hacks and ingenious processes, tools and methods.

Lynne is an experienced board director and chair and an #avgeek, loving everything aviation, helicopters and air traffic control.?

Read more at www.lynnecazaly.com