Thread by @realscientists

Merry Tuesday!

Tuesdays are usually my most eventful days of the week, by design.

I have 9 meetings today, the earliest at 11 AM and the latest ending at 10:30 PM.

And you will ask: "Why, Taka, WHY in the name of reason and science would you do this to yourself?"

1. We have a regular call of all the department leads. That includes people in Korea, US ET + PT. Right now, we have it in the evening my time.

2. To minimize the number of evenings I'm in meetings, I put the rest of my meetings with Korea teams back-to-back with the above.

3. I also put cross-team meetings with stakeholders on Tuesdays, during the US day. These only happen every other week… but why also put them on Tuesdays!?

There are THREE reasons why I do this to myself (and my team, what a monstrous boss!).

ONE: we have our team sprint planning every other week, synced to happen the Wednesday morning after our Tuesday marathon of cross-team meetings. (My team only attends half the number I do. I may be a monster but I'm a thoughtful monster.)

Sprint planning (tech lingo) is when we decide, prioritize, and assign the things we want to accomplish in the next 2 weeks.

It makes sense to do this planning right after we meet with other teams, and after I hear from company leadership.

SECOND reason: consolidate meetings to create meeting-free blocks.

We have cross-team meetings Tues, internal sprint planning Wed AM, followed by my 1:1 checkins to make sure they're feeling supported+satisfied.

We have 1 regular business meeting Mon, and nothing Th+Fri.

*My teammates are scientists.*

We need stretches of time to focus and brainstorm and code, time to turn a challenging problem in our minds during a walk in the park.

And also, we're in a pandemic, zoom fatigue sucks, it's nice to have work days with nothing on the calendar.

THIRD reason:
We have our regular "team tea time" on Thursday afternoons—a day that's otherwise meeting-free.

This is a no-work-talk time for the team to hang out.

Now, imagine having this on your calendar after you've had 3 meetings. It would probably feel like "oh another zoom."

But this way, it's the only time this day we see each other, and we use it to talk about our pets, new shows, weekend plans, etc.

I should also add that none of my teammates have evening meetings.

Those are things that fall on me, and between Korea and US ET, these meetings have to be an evening meeting for *someone*.

Some of you have told me the thread promotes poor work-life balance.

I am sorry, as that’s the opposite of what I wanted.

The goal was for one evening/week with meetings (instead of multiple) for me, and my team to have meeting-free blocks (instead of scattered thru week).

I *try* to set good examples for W/L balance to my team, as I feel it’s especially important for someone in a leadership role at a tech startup & adjacent to academia.

Again, I’m sorry I’ve fallen short of that goal here.

https://twitter.com/astrobassball/status/1370360175085903874