I’m amazed these titans of productivity have time to write blog posts about productivity.
No "Hello", No "Quick Call", and No Meetings Without an Agenda
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Re: No "Hello", No "Quick Call", and No Meetings Without an Agenda
#12these things annoy me too but it's never going to stop, linking somebody to something like this is just going to result in everybody disliking you and then asking you for a quick call anyway when they want something.
Re: No "Hello", No "Quick Call", and No Meetings Without an Agenda
#13I get the sentiment, but also, for many the work place is a socialization hub. And what OP argue about is a direct consequence of that: small talks, serendipity, politness rules, etc. If you want raw efficiency, the article makes sense. However, in most orgs, that's not what most workers want.
Small talk is fine, but when someone isn't willfully trying to engage in small talk and just is walking through a ritual to ask me a question, it seems better to skip the ritual and get to the point. Instead of "Hi [name]", them waiting for me to reply, me waiting for them to reply, and them sending their question, they could write "Hi [name], [question]" in their initial message. There are no disadvantages to this and plenty of advantages.
Re: No "Hello", No "Quick Call", and No Meetings Without an Agenda
#14The level of entitlement in this post is ridiculous. Dude. You're just an engineer from an Engineering department of some company. Nobody's gonna read & apply any special rules of communnicating with you, especially written by yourself (sic!)
It seems reasonable to me. I tell my reports to decline meeting requests unless the invitations include an agenda and a clear goal.
If you're asking for 30 minutes or an hour of someone's time, it is only common courtesy to tell them why.
If you send someone a message, don't just say "Hi". This is incredibly bad manners in the context of asynchronous communication. Give the recipient an opportunity to prioritize your message. You don't know what they are doing. They could be fire fighting. They could be tied up in a face-to-face conversation. They could be in deep flow. They might have three or four other messages to prioritize alongside yours.
If you don't give someone the information to make an appropriate prioritization decision, all you are doing is inducing anxiety.
This is all a matter of being kind and accommodating to your colleagues, enabling them to work with you effectively, and making it easier for them to help you.
Purposefully making your colleagues' lives more difficult is a recipe for an unpleasant working environment.
Re: No "Hello", No "Quick Call", and No Meetings Without an Agenda
#15At a certain point it just doesn't make sense to over-optimize for productivity, when the sacrifice (being pleasant & accessible to coworkers) isn't worth the gain (more focus time coding).
This is a phenomenal general rule and can be expanded well beyond engineering and social norms:
At a certain point it just doesn't make sense to over-optimize for productivity, when the sacrifice {insert impact} isn't worth the gain {insert output}.
Re: No "Hello", No "Quick Call", and No Meetings Without an Agenda
#16I get the sentiment, but also, for many the work place is a socialization hub. And what OP argue about is a direct consequence of that: small talks, serendipity, politness rules, etc. If you want raw efficiency, the article makes sense. However, in most orgs, that's not what most workers want.
The Article is about remote work, which dodges this issue.
It doesn't, chat and mails actually become way more socially important in remote.
Re: No "Hello", No "Quick Call", and No Meetings Without an Agenda
#17> A call is more distracting than a chat message. I highly disagree. A call has a definite start and end. Async chats leave an open thread in your mind that needs to be constantly polled and interrupt flow much more than a call.
I believe the author means "quick call"s. They are not against scheduled calls.
Re: No "Hello", No "Quick Call", and No Meetings Without an Agenda
#18I get the point. You want a quick answer, then ask the question directly.
I dont think the rule can be applied universally.
1) Cultural norms - This may not work in all environments
2) You have an issue which requires cross function help. Hard to frame a precise question when you dont know which features are the most significant.
Re: No "Hello", No "Quick Call", and No Meetings Without an Agenda
#19Open a jira ticket for every meeting you attend. (And close it). When asked about productivity treat meetings as the most productive use of your time. "I had a fantastic day yesterday, attended 5 meetings and closed 5+n tickets. I'm so productive I deserve a raise."
Managers treat meetings as the most important thing you do. (Its the most important thing they do.) The disconnect is that we don't see them the same.
Once you start taking credit for all the meetings you attend, you'd be surprised how many fewer you get invited to.
Re: No "Hello", No "Quick Call", and No Meetings Without an Agenda
#20For larger enterprises with complex org charts, I consider an agenda one of two invaluable tools for meetings, the other being post-meeting minutes including a RACI chart. If someone can't think up a few bullet points for a meeting in advance, that person has not prepared for their meeting, and will waste some of the participant's time. Not creating (one-line) minutes that most importantly include decisions that have…
>RACI chart
Today I learned: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsibility_assignment_matr...