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How do you balance writing code with constant meetings?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: How do you balance writing code with constant meetings?

#11

Post by throwaway4233 »

Do you have detailed agenda presented to you about the meeting on what it is about and what the it aims to achieve ?

I would suggest asking for agenda notes to be included as part of the meeting invite, with the agenda being part of an email or part of visible documentation that is available to the participants. This forces people setting up invites to evaluate if their needs can be accommodated on an email or by a RFC and allows you to respond to the matter when free without waiting for a meeting to happen. You would also then have access to a thread of information, in case new participants are called in and they need to be backfilled.

Re: How do you balance writing code with constant meetings?

#12

Post by sdevonoes »

> As I get more comfortable with my abilities the constant stream of interruptions is bugging me. How do I deal with this? I've talked to my boss that I am into too many meetings and he has said I can go offline and skip meetings, yet he expects me to be in meetings because he requires my expertise for complicated technical subjects that come up.

I don't get it. Attending meetings is work as well. If you got distracted because of meetings and you couldn't finish your "coding tasks", then that's fine because you finished your "meeting tasks".

Some days, in the standups I say:

- yesterday I did attend 2 meetings, couldn't focus on Jira issue XX because of that - today I will continue on Jira issue XX, but since I have 3 meetings, I will need more time to finish

My managers: all right

Re: How do you balance writing code with constant meetings?

#13

Post by [deleted] »

sdevonoes wrote: post #12

> As I get more comfortable with my abilities the constant stream of interruptions is bugging me. How do I deal with this? I've talked to my boss that I am into too many meetings and he has said I can go offline and skip meetings, yet he expects me to be in meetings because he requires my expertise for complicated technical subjects that come up. I don't get it. Attending meetings is work as well. If you got distract…

[deleted]

Re: How do you balance writing code with constant meetings?

#14

Post by 100011_100001 »

clusmore wrote: post #10

The other answers here are mostly suggesting reactive steps to the situation that you are being flooded with meeting invites and need to respond to them (block time in your calendar, decline meetings). These are good strategies that work in a broad range of environments, because attending meetings is a personal decision for you as an individual. I'd like to at least suggest the proactive approach - to try to cut down…

I like this approach. In my case it's 50/50. However even improving half of the meetings would be a huge change.

Re: How do you balance writing code with constant meetings?

#15

Post by CinematicStudio »

I would suggest you simply find another place to work.

By reading your post, I don't think you'll really be satisfied here -- I think this will be a recurring theme, and will slowly drain you out. Most managers seem to not get this at all -- we programmers HATE meetings, and unless it's ABSOLUTELY ABSOLUTELY necessary, I'd rather be left out of all meetings.

I HATE meetings, the most I can muster is 2 meetings/week (scrum). Right now, I have my own business, and even when I meet with contractors, I still very seldom have more than 2 meetings/week.

This is one of the reasons I left a job a few years back - 2 meetings/day, it was simply driving me insane.

Re: How do you balance writing code with constant meetings?

#16

Post by 100011_100001 »

CinematicStudio wrote: post #15

I would suggest you simply find another place to work. By reading your post, I don't think you'll really be satisfied here -- I think this will be a recurring theme, and will slowly drain you out. Most managers seem to not get this at all -- we programmers HATE meetings, and unless it's ABSOLUTELY ABSOLUTELY necessary, I'd rather be left out of all meetings. I HATE meetings, the most I can muster is 2 meetings/week (…

This is somewhat tangential but how did you go from writing code to having your own business? I am always curious how the transition happens.

I actually like working here. I brought the meetings thing up with an upper manager that my manager reports to. He actually feels this is a problem that needs to be solved better in the whole company. But those things sometimes lead nowhere.

Re: How do you balance writing code with constant meetings?

#17

Post by 100011_100001 »

markus_zhang wrote: post #9

See if u can book yourself blocks of time everyday so that people cannot assign meetings to you. I did that occasionally and everytime someone throws me a meeting I just decline it if it conflicts with that block of time.

Since making my post I have started doing this. If nothing else it gives me a feel on when I can write code.

Re: How do you balance writing code with constant meetings?

#18

Post by CinematicStudio »

100011_100001 wrote: post #16
CinematicStudio wrote: post #15

I would suggest you simply find another place to work. By reading your post, I don't think you'll really be satisfied here -- I think this will be a recurring theme, and will slowly drain you out. Most managers seem to not get this at all -- we programmers HATE meetings, and unless it's ABSOLUTELY ABSOLUTELY necessary, I'd rather be left out of all meetings. I HATE meetings, the most I can muster is 2 meetings/week (…

This is somewhat tangential but how did you go from writing code to having your own business? I am always curious how the transition happens. I actually like working here. I brought the meetings thing up with an upper manager that my manager reports to. He actually feels this is a problem that needs to be solved better in the whole company. But those things sometimes lead nowhere.

I've always hated big companies, because of the red tape/politics. I've slowly gravitated to freelancing/working from home, and I've been doing it (WFH) since roughly 2003.

I've lately had a client almost for 10 years, and towards the end, I really really wanted to create my own product. I won't bore you with the details, but it's a video editor and I will launch it in about 1 month.

I have saved up enough money to last for 1 year no matter what happens. So it's a risk -- it may or may not pan out.

If it doesn't, I'll go back to consulting.

Coming back to meetings: with this client, I had 2 meetings/week, I didn't really enjoy it, but on the plus side, they were very thorough (the meetings were very short, 15-30 minutes)

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