Attention – Page 5 – mardihumphreys.com

You First

Photo by Christian Domingues from Pexels

The constant running around during the holidays keeps you so filled with adrenaline that it’s easy to ignore how exhausted you are. Now that the holidays are officially over, you may feel under the weather. The very events that are supposed to be joyful often cause the most stress because of our (sometimes unrealistic) expectations. Add to that the uncertainty of the various variants of COVID plus the impending menace of cold and flu season and you have the ingredients for a tasty overthink stew. If your mind, body, and/or spirit are telling you to stop, then pay attention. Give yourself the gift of self-care.

Physical

Does stress have your neck tied up in knots? Get a massage. Do you feel jittery? Cut back on the caffeine. Do you feel sluggish? Cut back on the alcohol. Get up from your desk or couch and exercise. It doesn’t have to be strenuous. If it’s unseasonably warm, go for a walk. If it’s too cold outside to do that, then stretch or do some balance work. Be kind to your body by covering the basics: get eight hours of sleep, eat healthy foods, and drink plenty of water.

Mental

Not everyone’s holidays were happy. If you’re feeling more morose than merry, then try identifying your triggers. For example, does the thought of returning gifts in person at a big box store freak you out because of the close proximity of all the people and the possibilities of the presence of COVID? Then think about alternatives: go at a time when the store is least busy (Googling the store name will give you this data), wear a mask, and practice social distancing. Or, Is your mind overwhelmed by all the work others want your help with because they put projects on hold until after the holidays? Take a minute and ask yourself which of these projects require your unique expertise. Is there someone else you can delegate a project to? (Bonus points if that person is someone you sponsor.)

Spiritual

Routines can be calming. Beginning and ending your day the same way every day signals to your mind that everything is as it should be. Maybe you begin your day with prayer/meditation over coffee. Maybe you end it with box breathing as you lay in bed waiting for sleep. Practicing gratitude can be spiritual too. If you kept a gratitude journal for 2021, now is a good time to go back to the beginning and read it. If you didn’t, then to fill its pages for 2022, consider making it a priority to do one nice thing for one person everyday. It can be as simple as holding the door for someone behind you as you both enter the same building.

Resolve to pay attention to your mind, body, and spirit through regular self-care this year and do not feel guilty about it. If you want to pull out crayons and a Scooby Doo coloring book and spend an hour, then do it!

How do you practice self-care? Please share your tips in the comments.

Distracted December

The only thing I love more than making to-do lists is crossing items off them. But I feel something inside tugging on me to stop and pay attention to the holidays before they all pass by. If you feel the same, then here are some suggestions for reconciling work productivity and holiday celebrations.

Plan

What are the top three things you absolutely need to accomplish by January 1, 2022? Schedule them on your calendar and block that time. When you’re doing one of these tasks, concentrate on it until either it’s done, or you’ve gotten as far as you can in one sitting. Do not allow interruptions and distractions. Do not check your mobile or multi-task. Multi-tasking is like treading water. You work hard but don’t get very far. In this plan remember to schedule time for:

Checking with the people from whom you need information. Ask them when they are taking time off. This will prevent you from either interrupting their holidays or putting important projects on hold
Margin. If you think a task will take thirty minutes, schedule at least forty-five to complete it. If you’re done in forty minutes, take two of them and stare off into the distance to give your eyes a break before tackling the next project
Yourself. It’s the secret sauce of productivity. Even if it’s to spend the day in your PJs sipping coffee and reading a novel, take time to rest, recharge, and reboot
Buying gifts
Celebrating. Ask your co-workers what holidays they’re observing and invite them to share their traditions at the all-team party. BTW, leave your phone in another room so you aren’t tempted to check it
Attending a holiday networking event. The holiday season is a good opportunity to both make new acquaintances and deepen relationships with business associates you recently met
Adjusting the plan. In mid-December look at the bottom of your priority list and see what you can put off until after January 1st

Break

Take care of yourself. Get up from your desk and stretch after an hour’s work. Drink a glass of water instead of a caffeinated drink. Get enough sleep. Reward yourself with a break to do whatever you want to for fifteen minutes (power nap, check Facebook, watch a cute cat video) after finishing a task.

Analyze

At the beginning of January, analyze your data. Answering these questions will help you improve the end of 2022:

Did you accomplish everything you wanted to? If not, what stopped you?
What did you do well?
What could you improve?
What do you wish you’d done differently? How will you make that adjustment next time?

You’re juggling parties, shopping, traveling, children’s events, etc., and you’d rather be watching Elf than working on the end-of-the-year report. Set your boundaries, communicate them, and enforce them. The earlier in the process you do this, the more understanding your team and manager will be.

Do you have a plan for finishing 2021 strong? Please share in the comments.

Purposeful Procrastination

Here in the Digital Age where business moves at the speed of data traveling through fiber, if I’m not productive every minute I’m at work, I fear that I’m being lazy. Since emails are tasks someone wants us to do and they arrive 24/7/365, it seems I’m not the only one with boundary issues. In terms of time management, we put off completing a task because we have other tasks that are either more urgent or more important. Or, we put it off because we don’t want to do it. But what if we use procrastination as a tool to preserve our boundaries?

If/Then

If we restrain ourselves from replying all to a group email asking for volunteers to organize the office holiday party, then are we lazy or are we allowing someone else to step into leadership?
If we proofread the slide deck for tomorrow’s weekly team meeting because the team member assigned to do so hasn’t done it yet, then are we being helpful or are we doing their job for them?
If we accomplish a last-minute errand for a co-worker, do we then set ourselves up for accomplishing more last-minute tasks for this co-worker in the future?

This is Not the Admin You’re Looking For

For example, sixty-three minutes before my team was scheduled for a video conference with a client, the account manager emailed me saying that the client needed to reschedule. He tasked me with:

Notifying the other team members that the meeting was postponed
Checking their availability for the new meeting time the client proposed
Rescheduling the meeting on our video conferencing platform
Updating the meeting calendar invitation

When this task arrived in my inbox, I was preparing for a different video conference huddle that was only fifteen minutes away. I had time to send a quick group email, but I chose to ignore the account manager’s request and prepare for my imminent meeting.

Sixty-eight minutes later, the emails from my teammates flew, reply-all style. The account manager ended up completing all the tasks he attempted to assign to me.

Confession: I intentionally procrastinated.

Sorry (Not Sorry)

It was hard to restrain myself. I felt bad for not preventing my teammates’ confusion and for using them to force the account manager to do his own administration. But apparently, I did not feel bad enough to go ahead and do the account manager’s administration. I prioritized my boundary above everyone else’s convenience.

Proceed With Caution

Having said (and done) that, please remember that we should exercise good judgement when evaluating such situations. Using restraint to enforce boundaries can look like procrastination and can be detrimental to our brand. We need to examine who may be impacted and how negatively before we intentionally delay action. In the above example, three people were inconvenienced for a relatively short period of time and my brand was positively impacted because I’m not the team’s administrator. I used the passage of time to help me hold that boundary. Hours after the incident, I replied to the account manager’s original email. I suggested that it’s probably not a best practice to rely on me to complete last-minute tasks as evidenced by this incident. I have not received another last-minute task from him since.

Have you ever intentionally put off work? Why? Please share in the comments.

Going off the Rails

“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” – Abraham Lincoln

How do you know when the axe is sharp enough? Overthinking is a pattern of behavior where your thoughts swirl in an endless negative loop. These thoughts produce fear that clouds your judgement. Instead of preparing you for positive next steps, you get stuck. How thin is the line between preparation and overthinking?

Why It’s Bad

Your brain is trying to reduce the anxiety caused by your situation’s uncertainty, but overthinking typically just produces more questions to worry about.
It may deter you from making rash decisions, but as a habit, overthinking is a gateway to excessive worry which can lead to stress, anxiety, depression, OCD, and/or PTSD.
Pondering all the possible outcomes to a decision is fine, but when it prevents you from choosing one of them, that’s a problem.
Do not confuse overthinking with self-reflection. Self-reflection results in learning, insight, and gaining perspective. Overthinking results in dwelling on everything you don’t have control over and feeling bad about it.
Overthinking projects that are on a deadline gives you less time to complete the project. For example: taking so much time deciding what you’re going to wear to your client presentation that you run out of time to adequately rehearse the presentation.
If you are busy overthinking a situation, then you are too distracted to notice new opportunities.

What It Feels Like

You lose sleep because of the repeated negative thoughts of how you feel about the problem instead of how you’re going to solve it.
You have trouble making easy decisions (e.g., where to go for lunch).
You second guess your decisions (e.g., I should have known in the interview that Joe Sixpack was a bad hire).

How To Stop

Distract Yourself: Your brain will come up with possible solutions when you leave it alone for a while. Take a break and listen to a few minutes of your favorite podcast.
Journal: Stop and write down what triggered the overthink. After a week, read what you wrote. Do you see any patterns? Make a plan to deactivate the trigger the next time it happens.
The Practical Test: When you are spiraling, ask yourself, “What evidence are these thoughts based on? Is it legitimate? Is there someone I trust that I can ask?” If your thoughts are illogical, unreasonable or impractical, they are overthink.
Change Your Environment: Enlist your endorphins in the battle. Get outside and go for a run or walk the dog or ride your bike.
Worry Time: Schedule a recurring weekly appointment on your calendar for worrying and limit it to fifteen minutes. This accomplishes three things: you control when you allow the worried thoughts, you limit the time you allow yourself to worry, and by the time the appointment comes, you may no longer have anything to worry about. Begin your worry time with this question, “Can I do anything to change this situation in the next twenty-four hours?” If yes, then stop thinking and take action. If no, then put the thought on the agenda for the next scheduled worry appointment.

If you can’t stop ruminating on your own, it can damage your mental health. A trained therapist can give you exercises and accountability to pull yourself out of the overthinking doom loop. Learning how to flip your negative, repetitive thoughts into positive ones is a skill worth developing.

What do you do to pull yourself out of overthinking? Please share in the comments.

My Way or the Highway

I keep stumbling over the word agency because it’s a contributing factor to The Great Resignation. It’s trending in the context of one of its lesser meanings (check out #9). As I struggled to visualize it, I received an unexpected email of encouragement from my manager. In reassuring me that I am achieving our goals, his email helped me label how I achieve them. It also woke me to the fact that not everyone has this freedom in their work. Employers had to give up a certain amount of control over their workforces at the height of COVID-19 when they weren’t allowed to have employees work under their watchful eyes. An employer who has issues with employees working remotely is not a logistics problem, it’s a trust problem.

Control

If it’s not enough to complete the task correctly and on time, but it also has to be done the way the manager prefers, then you have a lack of agency. For example: toward the end of her life, our grandmother was not physically strong enough to wash the windows on her house herself. During a visit, my husband offered to do it. She immediately pointed out what equipment to pull from where, gave him a recipe for the cleaner, dictated while he mixed it, and window by window instructed him on how to clean them. Kudos to him for his patience. There were 13 windows on that house. It was a long afternoon. Haven’t we all had a micromanager? Or one who insisted we be available to them 24/7/365 like Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada? If this is your current situation, can you set boundaries on when you’re available to your manager? Can you transfer to another department that allows you more freedom? Is having agency important enough to you to find a different job? Whatever you decide, take time to think about how you got into this situation. Are you habitually involved with people (managers, people you date, etc.) who want to control you? If you determine that you’re the common denominator in these relationship equations, talk about them with a trusted friend, therapist, or coach to help you identify red flags in both your behavior and your manager’s. Otherwise, the lack of agency is likely to follow you to your next role.

Trust

Your lack of agency means your manager doesn’t entirely trust you. Some things to consider:

Have you done something to lose their trust?
Are they micromanaging everyone, or just you?
Is your relationship strong enough that you can ask them what they are afraid of?
Is there a way you can reduce their insecurities?
If you do what you’re told the way you’re told to do it every single time, there’s no learning. Would your manager let you experiment, fail, then learn from the result? For example: Can you do a project how, where, and when you want to, successfully complete it, deliver a report of the results to your manager, then ask for this process to become your standard operating procedure?
Have you had success on your own initiative that you can remind them of to prove your credibility?
Would more communication (e.g., weekly status reports) on projects give them more confidence in you?

You train people how to treat you. You cannot change other people’s behavior, you can only change what behavior you will accept from them. If you can’t achieve the autonomy you need at your current position, then your decision is whether to stay or go.

What do you do when you experience a lack of agency at work? Please share in the comments.

The Tide is High

You kept your business solvent during the pandemic. Now vaccines are available and buildings are reopening. Both you and your workforce are deciding where to go from here. Pivots like switching the product you manufacture (e.g., making hand sanitizer instead of bourbon) or shifting your employees to working from home has not only burned everyone out, but also revealed work-life integration paradigm shifts. You need to both retain your current workforce and attract new employees, but how? This week, let’s focus on keeping the folks you have.

Pivot Again

You regularly adapt your business to market conditions. This shift in the balance of power is a condition more abrupt than most, but it offers you a gift. It forces you to look at your mission, vision, values, policies, and procedures and sift them through the filter of The Platinum Rule. For example, employees hear the siren call of flexibility and autonomy in their jobs. Are your company’s paid time off policies amenable to employees with caregiving duties to young children, aging parents, chronically ill partners, etc.? If not, then it behooves you to reevaluate those policies. If your employees are being washed away by the Talent Tsunami, then you need to take a long, hard look at your company’s culture, protocols, and development paths. If your workforce was happy before the pandemic, then they would not be so tempted to leave now. You will be wise to shift your mindset to focus more on taking care of your employees and repeatedly communicating that commitment. People want to work in an environment where they feel valued. If your company has a vision the workforce can believe in, you coach them to share it, and demonstrate how their jobs are integral to realizing it, then employees get invested in meeting the company’s goals and want to stick around.

Engagement Brings Retention

The inconvenient truth is it’s cheaper to keep an employee than to hire a new one. If you don’t know what your employees need to achieve work-life integration, or to feel appreciated, now is the time to ask and actively listen to their answers. Individual contributors who feel they belong and have purpose are less likely to burn out. How do you know if your employees are burned out? Ask them. Company-wide email surveys are easy to create, send, and compile results. You can ask questions like: How do you think the company handled pivoting during COVID-19? How many days a week do you want to WFH? If the company reimburses you for upskilling, will you agree to work for us for a year? The answers will give you data that will not only help you to assess the risk of employees leaving, but also reveal what you can do to keep the good ones.

“Bye” the Way

Unless employees signed a contract saying they’d do one, they are not obligated to give exit interviews. A smart employee will not grant one if they don’t have anything nice to say. An exit interview is more of a benefit to you than to them. It’s an exiting employee’s gift of feedback to you. If the resigning employee grants one, stick to questions that will help you retain other employees. For example: What could the company have done to make it easier for your team to communicate with each other?

What are you doing to encourage your employees to join you in making your business succeed? Please share in the comments.

The Motherhood Penalty

During a networking lunch with a female colleague, we chatted about our grown-and-flown daughters. We have four between us and love them more than life. I said, “I think being a working woman in America is a challenge, but being a working mother in America is a problem. Having children is a luxury.” She replied, “Or a liability.” That’ll preach. She said out loud what plenty of people think but don’t publicly acknowledge because we’re afraid of either hurting our children’s feelings or being harshly judged by our peers.

Research reveals that when both a man and a woman are up for the same job, gender is a factor in who gets it. The general perception is that a man can focus on the job, while a woman, specifically a mother, will be distracted by her circumstances outside of the job. This unconscious gender bias is called The Motherhood Penalty.

It can show up in how managers talk to each other about their direct reports. For example, on Monday a department head comments that Joe is a good example to his children because he worked all weekend to finish a project, but when Jane does the same thing, this department head worries aloud about who is taking care of her children. Also, think about positions in your business that require travel. Are there more men in those jobs than women?

A woman doesn’t have to be a mother to get penalized. Assumptions regarding women’s lifestyle choices are common. Some prejudice is so ingrained and subtle it occurs unnoticed until a vice president looks around the company and wonders why there are so few female directors. To get promoted to director, you first have to get promoted from individual contributor to manager, and that’s the problem.

The solution falls heavily on Human Resources. They possess the data and are in the position to ask questions about what it reveals. For example, if the organization has historically promoted more men than women from individual contributors to first-time managers, why? The answer may require an assessment of the performance review process to bring gender bias into the company’s collective consciousness. You can look at quantifiable statistics like skillsets and who consistently met their departments’ KPIs. But anecdotal evidence must be gathered too. Are female employees held to a higher standard than male employees in the same role? Are female employees’ mistakes criticized more and remembered longer than male employees’ mistakes?

Assuming it’s more risky to fill a leadership position with a woman instead of a man is false speculation. Anything could happen. The man could take all the leadership development you give him and go work for your biggest competitor. When organizations advance the person most qualified for the job and provide reasonable support for that person, everyone benefits; especially the clients.

How do you see The Motherhood Penalty at work? Please share in the comments.

Reservation Highly Recommended

Dad and Me Father’s Day 2021 Photo by MSH

During one of my networking groups last week, we discussed what we learned from the men in our lives in honor of Father’s Day. My dad unintentionally taught me the power of follow-up. In a conversation he habitually listens more than he talks, asks engaging questions, and, even if it’s weeks later, texts or calls for an update. You’d assume the follow-up would be the most powerful part of the process, but no. It’s the listening. If you’re just listening to reply, you’ll jump into the conversation at your first opportunity. But if you restrain yourself and listen to understand, (e.g., repeat what the speaker said back to them, ask investigative questions) you build trust. Acting with restraint is useful in many work situations.

Social Intelligence

Robert Greene advises “Never outshine the master.” You may be smarter than your manager when it comes to the assigned task, but if you push back too hard, you reveal that you lack social intelligence. For example, once upon a time I was in a brainstorming meeting with a group of five people: an executive, his assistant, and two of my teammates. The exec kept falling down rabbit holes and I kept pulling us back with the same phrase, “So, the goal is zero waste…” The third time I said it, the exec seemed embarrassed. By the fifth time I said it, both the exec and his assistant were annoyed and my teammates were uncomfortable. In demonstrating I knew what the goal was, I exposed that his ideas would not achieve it. Remember the cliche, don’t bite the hand that feeds you? When applied to work, don’t break the finger of the hand that signs your paycheck.

Emotional Intelligence

Let’s say our team missed a deadline because you spent more time on social media than working on our project. If I pointed this out, how would you react? Would you get defensive and lash out? Or would you take a few deep breaths and ask for a safe place outside your workspace to store your phone while you’re working on our project? The latter choice shows restraint. Reacting out of ego won’t serve you in the long run. Humility is strength, not weakness. You fell into temptation. Get up, make the necessary adjustment, and keep going.

Business Intelligence

Creative freedom is an oxymoron. Freedom leaves choices wide open. You’re more creative when given parameters like a direction, deadline, or dilemma to solve. In other words, a restraint. For example, I’m constantly looking for ways to promote brand awareness that won’t break my budget. The views on the company’s social media pages go way up when I post photos or videos of our dog. Thus, “Tails From the Home Office,” a photo/video series starring my adorable-but-less-than-helpful “assistant” was born. Restraint is also crucial when searching for B2B clients. No one wants to miss a lead, but lack of focus denies you a priority. BTW, Priority implies one. If you have multiple priorities, then you don’t have any. Define yours and filter decisions through it. If your sweet spot is fast-growing manufacturers with 50 or fewer employees, build relationships with them. Don’t let FOMO cause you to miss those you serve best.

How has showing restraint helped you get ahead at work? Please share in the comments.

Brand Awareness

Last week we talked about bringing your whole self to work which concentrated on the impression you give. This week let’s talk about your reputation and if the brand you’re projecting is being received the way you intend.

Why do you need to know?

In the 1980’s, Lee Atwater coined the phrase, “Perception is reality.” You may think you are kind, compassionate, and thoughtful, but if your peers, bosses, and clients see you as cruel, harsh, and insensitive; that’s a problem. For example:

You thought that you were being assertive, but your team mate accuses you of being difficult
You thought that you were celebrating accomplishments, but your boss suggests you stop bragging
You thought that you were being diligent, but your client complains your follow up is aggressive.

You can’t control every opinion of you, but shouldn’t you intentionally manage what you can? Every day you’re creating an impression and it affects what projects you get assigned, who you do them with, and even future job opportunities. Your performance is judged not only by what you do, but also how you do it. Your skill at influencing how others perceive you is a key to controlling your career trajectory. This is not manipulation; it’s both personal and leadership development.

How do you find out?

Self-awareness – Much of our behavior is unconscious and habitual. Consider taking an assessment like The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, DiSC Profile, or Clifton StrengthsFinder. Look for patterns in the data. E.g., Do you behave more dominantly when you’re stressed? Pro Tip: Don’t dwell on the results you disagree with. These tests are snapshots of where you were mentally and emotionally when you took them.

Feedback – Choose peers, managers, and direct reports you trust to give you objective evaluations. Ask them about a specific situation where their reaction was not what you expected. Graciously receive their feedback. Resist arguing and/or accusing them of misunderstanding. There will be at least a bit of subjectivity in their opinions, so evaluate them carefully. Excavate the truth from their feedback, then determine how you will communicate differently during your next interaction.

Reconnaissance – Observe leaders you admire. How do they behave? How do they influence? How do they present themselves in meetings, 1:1s and on social media? Define the traits they have that you want people to associate with you, then model them. E.g., is the leader known for facilitating productive problem solving? Before your next project meeting, think of three open-ended questions that will prompt discussion of how the team can push the project to the next step.

What if you want to change it?

Start Small – Begin with the easiest impression to change and make altering it a S.M.A.R.T. goal. Activate the perception-changing conversation by digging up common ground. For example, is your team full of dog lovers? If you like the same things, it’s a small step to reason that you want the same things (e.g., accomplishing the project you’re working on together).

Advertise – Let team mates know you’re in the process of changing your behavior, and that you’ll periodically ask for their feedback. Leading with vulnerability triggers support. Resist exaggerating. You can’t sustain deception. When it’s discovered, it’s really hard to earn trust back.

Repeat – You’ve trained people to anticipate you’ll react a certain way. It takes time, both for them and you, to unlearn the pattern and replace it with your new one. Participating in team projects is a good way to demonstrate your change. When successful completion depends on working together, your coworkers are motivated to perceive you positively.

It’s all interpretation. If coworkers, managers, and customers see you in a negative light, soon they don’t want to work with you and you don’t want to work with them. You have the power to make your light shine positively.

What do you do to control your narrative? Please share in the comments.

Teleconferencing Takes a Toll

“Think outside the box,” they say. But teleconferencing (I use Zoom) is a box we have to think inside of. It saves time and money, but what about energy and attention? We yearn for the in-person interactions we used to have, but recreating them virtually is setting our Zooms up for doom. We should approach our various interactions like they’re sports. Each sport has its own set of rules. We don’t play volleyball using the rules for basketball. Neither should we Zoom using in-person protocols. If our mindset is how we can best communicate within the constraints of teleconferencing, then we won’t be so forgetful, distant, quick-tempered, sleepy, and in need of a massage at the end of a day of Zooming.

When communicating, we assign 60-70% of all meaning to non-verbal behaviors like appearance, posture, and facial expressions. The cognitive load this takes to process over Zoom is both invisible and takes more energy than we realize. We stare at other people in proximity reserved for intimate conversations. If I’m at a conference room table with seven other people, I’m not inches away from their faces and staring at them for an hour. But on Zoom, I am. The intensity is exhausting.

We think harder about both giving and receiving non-verbals. In a 1.50 hour meeting last week with seven other people, I felt compelled to nod in agreement until I looked at all seven onscreen. In person, I typically nod three times no matter how many people are in the meeting. I studied the participants’ facial expressions during the silences following thorny questions. I reminded myself to look at the camera while speaking so it appeared I’m making eye contact. It’s work to connect emotionally when delivering our message to a lit dot at the top of our computer screens.

We mentally deal with distractions. While Zooming, calendar reminders, IMs, and email notifications go off. Even if we mute the sound notifications, a visual reminder pops up. (That’s my own fault, but not only is turning them off and on all day a pain; remembering to turn them off and on is too.) The landscapers mow the lawn outside our windows. The kids yell for us. The cat walks across the keyboard. Pretending these distractions aren’t happening isn’t something we have to deal with in person. When I’m at an in-person coffee meeting, I may have to ignore the other customers around us to concentrate on what my potential client is saying, but I’m not distracted by my sleeping dog snoring at my feet.

We look at ourselves for hours. There’s a hide self view on Zoom, but I want to see how others see me. When I’m concentrating hard on a speaker, my face looks like I disapprove. I need to see that non-verbal in order to adjust it. After a couple hours of Zooming, I notice how tired I look. This triggers a domino effect. It lowers my self-esteem, which lowers my confidence, which lowers my desire to participate in the meeting.

No commute allows us to stack multiple Zooms back to back. But just because we can doesn’t mean we should. Lately, when I offer to meet on Zoom, in-person, or with a phone call, my counterpart is politely open to all. When I say I’m tired of Zooming, they’re relieved (three people just last week). Pre-COVID, there were plenty of meetings that should have been emails. Now, there are plenty of Zooms that should be emails, phone calls, or IMs.

Are you aware of the toll teleconferencing is taking on your energy and attention? Please share in the comments.