back to indexCal Newport's Evidence To Cancel 90% Of Work Meetings
Chapters
0:0 Cal's intro
3:0 Cal summarizes article
8:0 How to cancel meetings
11:0 The default easy route
14:0 Office hours
15:0 Reverse meetings
16:30 Admin blocks
00:00:00.000 |
All right, so later we have David Sachs joining us 00:00:08.120 |
on an interesting study that a tech company did 00:00:13.660 |
So we haven't talked about meetings recently, 00:00:20.780 |
Is this article, I have this up on the screen 00:00:26.820 |
The title of this article is, we intentionally canceled 00:00:30.460 |
every meeting for a week, here's what happened. 00:00:33.780 |
And it is a recent article, it's from the 6th of November. 00:00:43.200 |
So I think hardcore sort of world without email fans 00:00:50.660 |
One of these cool nerd productivity companies. 00:01:04.300 |
I do my best work when I'm interrupted every 30 minutes 00:01:15.300 |
All right, so the author of this article goes on 00:01:20.060 |
So the ontology of meetings that pulls at her attention, 00:01:27.420 |
retrospectives, recurring team meetings, and one-on-ones. 00:01:30.780 |
I don't even know what most of those terms mean, 00:01:33.100 |
but it gives you some sense on the proliferation 00:01:40.060 |
So what they decided to try at this company, Zapier, 00:01:42.860 |
was something they called, Get Stuff Done Week, 00:01:50.340 |
The quote here says, "The idea was that by moving 00:01:54.220 |
from live calls to asynchronous communication, 00:02:03.900 |
because that means it's pervaded the cultural lexicon. 00:02:09.260 |
They were gonna just say, let's try this one week, 00:02:37.620 |
Here is some examples of what this particular person 00:02:47.140 |
So she said, instead of her weekly one-on-one, 00:02:49.620 |
which by the way, I don't even know what that is. 00:02:59.900 |
and sent them to her in a direct message on Slack. 00:03:19.420 |
I talk about task boards a lot in a world without email. 00:03:24.140 |
where all ongoing tasks can be seen, organized, 00:03:27.920 |
and have relevant information attached to them. 00:03:30.220 |
So Asana is just a one of these task board systems 00:03:38.940 |
stakeholders shared their thoughts in a Coda doc. 00:03:47.420 |
is instead of like, "Let's just get on the call 00:03:55.940 |
And finally, instead of a project kickoff call, 00:04:00.200 |
that shared the project charter timeline and next steps. 00:04:03.740 |
That's probably the most relevant information 00:04:09.300 |
Why do we have to spend 30 minutes talking about it? 00:04:15.380 |
is this particular employee who is not a manager said, 00:04:21.020 |
I normally spend between six and 10 hours in meetings." 00:04:29.520 |
it was even more impactful for managers at Zapier 00:04:33.000 |
who sometimes spend half their week or more in meetings." 00:04:38.000 |
So for the technical employees, this is 10 hours back, 00:04:54.940 |
and those are sprinkled throughout your week, 00:04:59.540 |
so they could eliminate almost any long stretches of time. 00:05:06.680 |
But look at this, managers at Zapier could spend 50% 00:05:15.100 |
So this particular employee talked to her manager 00:05:19.080 |
So her manager, Caitlin, said things such as, 00:05:36.020 |
You're still working and communicating, just differently. 00:05:38.540 |
The manager also said, "Instead of cramming tasks 00:05:41.980 |
into my short stints between calls like usual, 00:05:46.500 |
that require deeper thinking, like long-term strategy, 00:05:48.540 |
team planning, and cross-functional processes." 00:05:52.300 |
Also, the manager said, "A week without meetings 00:05:54.340 |
gave us space for more curiosity and experimentation, 00:05:59.140 |
we were trying to solve from a different angle. 00:06:07.480 |
I feel like the manager maybe practiced that line 00:06:10.840 |
before talking to her subordinate for this article. 00:06:15.240 |
I think that's, just think about this though for a second. 00:06:18.840 |
These managers, if you're spending more than half 00:06:21.180 |
of your hours on Zoom, this is not consolidated. 00:06:25.960 |
This is not, "Man, every day I have to do meetings 00:06:30.640 |
These hours are sprinkled throughout the days 00:06:44.520 |
of constant context shifting from one meeting to another 00:06:47.520 |
with these small areas in between to try to do tasks. 00:07:01.280 |
because you have to answer 15 urgent Slack messages 00:07:03.760 |
before the next meeting puts you into a different context. 00:07:11.300 |
The exhaustion that would engender is going to be pronounced. 00:07:16.160 |
it's gotta be a terrible way to take these high power, 00:07:23.260 |
that are organization and create new original things." 00:07:25.840 |
What a terrible way to actually try to harness that energy. 00:07:33.660 |
All right, so Zapier didn't wanna just rely on anecdotes. 00:07:42.940 |
80% of respondents achieved their goals for the week. 00:07:46.260 |
89% respondents found communication to be as effective 00:07:57.260 |
Okay, if you wanna succeed with something like this, 00:08:25.860 |
is something we don't necessarily know what to do with. 00:08:30.560 |
What am I supposed to do when I have two hours free? 00:08:37.880 |
By the way, we have some advice here on this podcast for you 00:08:43.060 |
All right, piece of advice number two, go async. 00:08:45.580 |
So they're big on using asynchronous channels. 00:08:48.680 |
So that's, you know, where you write something 00:08:55.060 |
So she used extra hours to help put in place systems 00:09:09.900 |
If you do one of these weeks, look back and say, 00:09:18.140 |
if you're still gonna have meetings in your schedule, 00:09:23.100 |
All right, so I think that's an interesting insight 00:09:27.880 |
in the sort of a modern high-tech knowledge work firm. 00:09:31.080 |
into what happens when you step away from meetings. 00:09:50.800 |
with the type of advice like a meeting-free GSD week. 00:09:55.480 |
Why, if these ways of operating are universally beloved, 00:09:59.560 |
way more effective, way less psychologically draining, 00:10:16.120 |
in the space of possible productivity configurations, 00:10:25.720 |
The overhead of implementing that is very small 00:10:29.720 |
Organizations will collapse towards this low-energy state 00:10:33.540 |
unless there is a huge amount of external energy 00:10:37.680 |
to try to maintain an alternative configuration. 00:10:53.520 |
they were talking about annotating a sonnet task. 00:10:55.800 |
They were talking about these CODA documents. 00:10:58.280 |
They're talking about an alternative kickoff procedure 00:11:05.100 |
and it would require buy-in from the top down 00:11:09.240 |
and a lot of consistent energy being put into, 00:11:16.400 |
And I think we underestimate the power of easy. 00:11:25.080 |
Easy is often a terrible way to make the most 00:11:27.520 |
of the assets that a knowledge work company has, 00:11:29.400 |
but it's also very, very difficult to dislodge. 00:11:34.520 |
I wanted to throw in three random pieces of advice 00:11:45.400 |
along with the advice given in this article we just reviewed. 00:11:58.180 |
needs a structured process that everyone understands 00:12:01.120 |
and all relevant stakeholders had a hand in crafting. 00:12:16.100 |
but once constructed, it can be way more effective 00:12:19.280 |
than just saying, we'll throw in a Zoom meeting 00:12:38.300 |
with the project charter and goals, et cetera, 00:12:40.420 |
that is uploaded to a particular tool called Coda 00:12:45.860 |
So these are structured collaboration processes. 00:12:49.620 |
you should try to put in place a process like this 00:12:51.860 |
that's very clear about here's how the interaction happens. 00:13:03.180 |
this should move away from having large blanks 00:13:06.660 |
We'll just figure it out when we all get on Zoom. 00:13:13.620 |
of structured collaboration philosophies work, 00:13:22.500 |
that would bring an end to this GSD experiment 00:13:25.740 |
if they tried to just extend it week after week, 00:13:28.660 |
is that there will be small things that pop up 00:13:33.900 |
that will probably be best dispatched if we could just talk. 00:13:42.720 |
it's probably gonna eat up 30 minutes of our time. 00:13:50.260 |
that will inevitably arise outside of your structures. 00:13:54.020 |
And I think the best catch-all is office hours. 00:13:56.580 |
Every day, every person has a clearly posted time. 00:14:04.540 |
Short discussions get deferred to office hours. 00:14:08.900 |
If someone tries to email you or hit you up on Slack 00:14:18.460 |
"I'll come to your next office hours to talk about it." 00:14:21.300 |
If someone throws a Zoom meeting invite at you, 00:14:26.500 |
"let's really see what we're dealing with here. 00:14:27.880 |
"And then if we need a longer meeting, we can set it." 00:14:41.540 |
reverse meetings often generate better insight 00:14:51.900 |
to something that I'm working on into one place, 00:15:02.300 |
instead of summoning five people to come meet with me, 00:15:05.940 |
I go and talk to each of those five people one-on-one. 00:15:09.720 |
And in an environment with catch-alls like office hours, 00:15:11.640 |
that means I'm gonna go to each of your office hours 00:15:15.720 |
Much greater insight is extracted from reverse meetings 00:15:18.660 |
because you get rid of the crowd social dynamics 00:15:22.960 |
You're able to fully extract the thoughts, the feelings, 00:15:28.360 |
You have more time to synthesize this information. 00:15:38.480 |
If I go through five people's existing office hours, 00:15:44.560 |
If I instead make the five of them get together 00:15:46.660 |
in a half hour meeting or an hour long meeting 00:16:00.080 |
All regular collaboration has to be structured, 00:16:05.280 |
depend more on reverse meetings than standard meetings 00:16:07.400 |
for complicated decisions where expertise is needed 00:16:09.920 |
or nuanced political emotional issues are at play. 00:16:17.120 |
instead of getting a lot of people into one room. 00:16:25.920 |
so say you're waiting around and nobody's there, 00:16:28.040 |
is that just a good time to do like an admin block? 00:16:31.000 |
- Yeah, just be like, okay, I'm gonna go through email 00:16:43.120 |
It used to be the big example was Jason Fried and Basecamp. 00:16:47.480 |
And when I did a kickoff event for World Without Email, 00:16:50.800 |
it was me and Jason in conversation and we got into that. 00:16:54.720 |
But I've heard from other readers since then. 00:17:00.760 |
Every day, set time, it can consume so many things 00:17:06.440 |
that otherwise would have been an email or a meeting. 00:17:08.840 |
And it's an intermediate between this email meeting 00:17:14.520 |
synchronous, asynchronous dichotomy that we often see. 00:17:21.960 |
I have to spend 30 minutes or an hour in a meeting 00:17:24.400 |
for something that could have been dealt with an email. 00:17:29.960 |
There really is an efficiency to real time back and forth. 00:17:32.560 |
You and I can figure something out in five minutes 00:17:35.200 |
that would otherwise take five to 15 messages, 00:17:49.000 |
So you get all the advantage of real time interaction, 00:17:51.160 |
all that efficiency without the schedule devouring overhead 00:17:56.160 |
of having every conversation have to have its own meeting 00:18:02.960 |
So it's like one of the number one strategies 00:18:05.760 |
for an organizational environment that I think 00:18:08.560 |
one of the most effective single pieces of advice 00:18:10.480 |
I have for organizations is put office hours in place.