Zoom Fatigue is Only Half of it.... How Do We Overcome Zoom Recall?

By now, we’ve all had friends and work colleagues share their tales of woe regarding Zoom fatigue. It’s hard to dispute that eight hours staring into a video conference screen yields a level of exhaustion that far surpasses the same number of hours interacting with co-workers in person.  In the Great Work-From-Home Tradeoff, that’s part of the price we pay for eschewing the daily commute and gaining more overall flexibility.  

But I’ve discovered an additional side effect of being on Zoom all day that is creating another daunting challenge that didn’t exist before we went all virtual.  I call it Zoom Recall, and when I mention the phenomenon to others, there’s an instant acknowledgment that they have experienced it too.  Zoom Recall is a compromised ability at the end of the workday to distinguish one meeting from another and remember the specifics from them.  This may be something you’ve experienced in the physical world as well, but like Zoom Fatigue, the symptoms seem more acute in a virtual environment.  This can be unnerving, especially for those who pride themselves on having a sharp memory.  

I first noticed it a few months ago when someone asked me whom I had coached in communications training sessions earlier that day.  When I went to mentally retrieve the rundown of clients, it was all a jumble. I had trained six different people over the course of the day but the distinguishing characteristics among them was now suddenly lost on me.  I felt like Guy Pearce’s character in the film Momento.  

When the same question was posed to me after a full day of coaching clients in person in their offices however, my recall was vivid and complete. Besides being reassured that my memory was in fine working order, it made me examine what factors could be at play that create Zoom Recall.

It seems the condition is exacerbated by the numbing sameness of a typical day bouncing from one Zoom meeting to the next.  Most of us have one fixed location set up in our home where we take the call.  Even in an office setting, there’s a little bit of variety that results from moving from one conference room to another.  The surroundings are slightly different, the participants are gathered around the table in different formations, you see the full picture of what other people are wearing and the energy they bring into the room.  Small talk and banter before the official start of the meeting occur with greater frequency in person than it does on Zoom.  All of these factors help cement the memory of the meeting in our minds.  Without them, we are resigned to distinguishing one meeting from another based on something memorable someone says, and we all know how often that happens.

A remedy for this, if you have the space in your home, is to establish two or more set ups for your Zoom calls and trying not to do consecutive calls from the same location.  Virtual backgrounds make this a viable option as long as you make sure the lighting in each spot is sufficient.  I have road tested this approach and I’m happy to say it works.

Another antidote to Zoom Recall rests in more extensive note taking.  Give your Moleskin a thorough workout.  In addition to typical note taking, I’ve started writing down details that are more descriptive in nature, going way beyond what I would normally do in an in-person meeting.  Sometimes it’s a collection of the little details that solidify a memory.  Now, if someone on the call has a guitar resting against the wall in the background, I’ll jot that down. If someone’s dog or cat walks through the room, I’ll make a note of that. The faster I can fill up my notebook, the more detail I can summon from previous meetings.

The maturity of video conferencing platforms have made productivity during the pandemic possible.  But if we are going to continue to rely on them (and we will) long after we return to the office, then managing their negative side effects will be all the more important.