Hi. Let’s talk about this unsustainable endless Zoom meeting situation we suddenly find ourselves in. And I’ll tell you how I’ve survived the last couple years of WFH and/or all-day meetings with adult ADD.

But first, we need to acknowledge how profoundly unsustainable the current Zoom meeting paradigm is. My social media is full of scientists and academics trapped in Zoom all day, every day. They are getting *nothing* done. And they are burning out. We need better solutions.

Better solutions could be asynchronous meetings, or re-negotiating which meetings really *could* be done over email (but which is in and of itself suddenly overwhelming). It definitely needs to involve stricter limits on how many hours per day of online meetings people can have.

Okay, but while we are figuring that out—this is what works for me, an adult scientist with ADD, who has been teaching online for several years now, working from home, and doing a lot of meetings remotely.

First of all: turn your video camera feed off. If you aren’t the meeting leader, and you aren’t actually talking right now, nobody needs to see your face. (I assume at this stage, you’ve already figured out that everyone who isn’t talking should be muted. But do that too.)

This works less well for one-on-one meetings, obviously. Though I also find those easier to pay attention to anyway. Maybe experiment with it a bit, see what works for you.

But! you say. If meeting participants are muted AND their cameras are off, how do I know people aren’t, I dunno. Surfing the web, using the bathroom, or, I don’t know, assembling those IKEA shelves they ordered in a fit of depressed online nesting?

Haha, EXACTLY. I’ll get that.

But! you say. My meeting leader insists we leave our video feeds on.

First of all, I’m sorry. In a pinch I advocate everyone claiming their home internet can’t handle the bandwidth, because seriously, THAT’S A REAL PROBLEM.

Let’s try to change this culture to make mandatory video feeds unacceptable. That’s some controlling bs, and it’s exactly what makes this so unsustainable.

But let’s get back to what people are doing with their video feeds off. ARE they in the bathroom? Playing video games? Doing carpentry in their garages? MAYBE. That’s actually the real glory of this.

I’ll start by telling you what I am doing.

Me, I’m making coffee, eating my lunch. I’m doing cross-stitch, or I’m playing Minesweeper or mahjong. Lately I’m taking my computer outside during online colloquium and and doing a bit of gardening.

I’ll also tell you what I’m *not* doing:

I’m trying very hard NOT to check email, or surf the web. I’m trying NOT to read papers with any care, even when I open the links in a presentation.

For me, this is about finding the thing that maximizes my attention to WHAT IS BEING SAID.

For me as a person with ADD, I find I pay attention best when my hands are occupied, but the higher levels of my brain are not. In autism acceptance we call this “stimming”, and that might actually be what I’m doing. It’s self-soothing, and it’s weird how much it helps my focus.

(That annoying guy who bounces his leg during meetings? He’s doing it because it helps him focus. It’s messing up your focus, and you need to have a conversation about how to manage both those needs. But really, fidgeting is a GOOD thing.)

Me, I apparently need to let my BRAIN fidget along with my hands in order to pay attention. Hence the cross-stitch and the Minesweeper.

And the weird thing is how well it WORKS. I’m much more attuned to what people are saying this way, AND I’m not exhausted at the end.

Yeah, I miss the occasional slide whe I don’t look up fast enough from my cross-stitch. But I HEAR everything. Normally I’m a terrible daydreamer, and I’d constantly tune out and miss important things.

I’d started to bring my cross-stitch to in-person conferences and all-day panels, way back a million years ago when we still met in person. I often felt obliged to sit in the back so as not to distract others, and/or offer explanations that I was self-accommodating my ADD.

(Which many people frankly can’t disclose, because of discrimination.)

But it’s really been night and day for me: I no longer struggle to follow the content presented at meetings. And sometimes I’m even looking forward to the next day, because it was almost... fun?

What I *can’t* do is check email or surf the web. Or code, or read papers, or do work of any kind. Because that really is using the same verbal part of my brain that needs to listen to the meeting. Presumably this part is all somewhat specific to me, so your mileage may vary.

So how do you apply this to your endless Zoom meetings? Well first, say hello to everyone, and then turn off your video camera feed. And mute your microphone.

Then, experiment a bit. Try to pay absolute attention. Try to do a couple of small chores. Knit a sock.

Experiment with other tasks during meeting, but pay attention to what helps vs. hurts your attention and energy level. Try to stick to tasks in the former category.

And definitely feel free make yourself lunch. NO ONE WILL KNOW.

If you are constantly the meeting leader or main presenter, then things are harder. Then you want to talk to YOUR supervisor about setting stricter time limits on your Zooming. Because that’s extra exhausting.

But also: try not to worry too much about what other people are doing, and if they are still paying attention if they turn off their video feeds.

Because we are ADULTS. Sometimes you have to trust us to know what we need to do for ourselves, to maximize our productivity/energy.

And finally, and most importantly: we need to figure out how to have many, many fewer Zoom meetings. Truly, this is ridiculous. Nobody is getting anything done, and we’re all exhausted. Let’s start figuring out other solutions.

/fin

Postscript:

https://twitter.com/jmonkiew/status/1246162025782247424?s=21 https://twitter.com/jmonkiew/status/1246162025782247424

Postscript #2: holy heck

https://twitter.com/moriartycr/status/1245875244302204936?s=21 https://twitter.com/moriartycr/status/1245875244302204936