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Comment by xivzgrev | Hacker News Reader

Many meetings only require a low level of attention. 90% is 1 or a few stakeholders discussing things, and the rest are there for occasional input. In a good chunk of my meetings I find myself actually tuning out too much, where I miss some important nuances because it was buried in the rest of the shit.

In an office you are forced to pay attention (laptops away…). It’s a new skill to balance between paying attention to irrelevant shit and missing the important details

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My solution has been to take nearly every meeting possible outside while on walks. It helps me focus where I would otherwise not be able to focus, and acts as a good way to get some additional exercise throughout the day.

Brilliant!

Don't you need reference materials and so forth?

Modern smart phones are computers which can for some (read: most) meetings be good enough. The multitasking features in android are helpful here, with things like split-screen and picture-in-picture.

If the meeting calls for it, I take it on a proper computer. Most meetings don't, in my experience. Just a lot of listening and maybe 5 minutes of talking.

I would love to do this, although I usually demo new features. Maybe I should pre-record them

I've found that my remote work meetings neatly break down into 3 categories:

  - direct engagement -- 2-4 participants
  - broad forum -- 5-12 participants
  - fly-on-the-wall -- any number, but my contribution will be 0-4 sentences

Of these, the broad forum has the least clear attention level requirement. The usefulness of these meetings is determined by the skill of the moderator, to steer the conversation flow towards the primary subject and ensure the relevance to most attendees. Unfortunately, many colleagues are still reluctant to have their cameras on, which makes gauging the interest level very challenging for the moderator.

I can frequently take fly-on-the-wall meetings (and sometimes even broad forum) while out walking, which is a nice plus.

that's a good idea for fly-on-the-wall ones! Will think about that

Well I find this really good. Maybe because I am younger and used to multitasking. But before pandemic just sitting in person meetings and trying to focus for 2 hours to not let my mind wander was really exhausting. Not since everything is remote I can also do some work while 2 hour meetings are being done. And afterwards I don't feel as tired as I did when we had physical meetings

Multitasking is just rapid attention change, and it can be jarring going from rapid changes in focus to lower stimulation and longer term focus, but both frames of mind are valuable, situationally. You might get more value multitasking but you might also bring a lot more value to some meetings by staying deeply focused, and I think that highly focused, high participation meetings are the ideal. Other communication can happen other ways. To help me with long & deep focus, I've found that reading novels or other long form writing helps me tame the impulse to bounce around so much, somewhat.

That's the case in traditionaly organised meetings, where I work we pull people in and kick them out pretty quickly. Meetings are 2-5 people max, everyone is contributing, and you get told you can leave if the topic pivots to something that doesn't apply to you.

nobody has ever had a laptop away at any company i’ve worked at in meetings

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