Thread by @joulee

Formula for a better day:

1) Zoom meetings tend to be more energy draining than reg meetings

+

2) The meeting is online and can be recorded

= Decline meetings you aren't essential for and ask the organizer to record it. Watch it if you need to later.

Often, we attend meetings even if we expect to be silent observers to avoid "missing the context of the conversation" (esp on key decisions)

Usually, reading the notes afterwards is sufficient, but there's still this nagging feeling.

Knowing there is a recording solves that.

Bonuses of watching recorded meetings later:
1) You can watch at 1.5x, 2x speed
2) You can watch it on your own time

Still waiting for automatic video transcription, which would make this even better.

Of course, there is risk that once meeting videos exist, they will be leaked. This is probably true for prominent companies (where people are already recording and leaking), but likely overblown for vast majority of meetings.

A protocol to delete them after X days would help.

There is also a version of this on the presenter side, if you're presenting similar things repeatedly to different groups. Just record yourself presenting once, send that out, ask everyone to watch it ahead of time, and set up a shorter sync for questions/discussions.

In short, meetings moving to virtual means opportunity for new norms. And I hope these new norms translate to less time spent in meetings because we are all probably spending way too much time in meetings.