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That sounds interesting - got me thinking a little more about this. I wonder if simply by making the information available on when people are in flow state, a

by rob-d 8y ago

That sounds interesting - got me thinking a little more about this. I wonder if simply by making the information available on when people are in flow state, a lot of flow state interruptions could be reduced, even without reducing the number of meetings. In particular, encouraging scheduling a meeting at the beginning / end of a flow state period rather than slap bang in the middle would have a big impact. For example, assume you want to work in flow from 10:00-12:30, scheduling a 15 minute meeting at 10:00 or 12:15 is preferable to scheduling one at 11:00, because you might still be able to get into flow for a couple of hours. I'd like to see a scheduling system which dynamically encourages people to assign other meetings to an already compromised flow period to keep other flow periods free (rather than just blocking things out). My worry is that without this, just focussing on minimal number of meetings / cost spent in meetings might not be enough. 3 badly scheduled 30 minute meetings might write off a whole day, whereas a single meeting of 1hr30 might have a much smaller impact, but on the raw "time spent in meetings" / "salary cost spent" metric these would seem equivalent.

goliatone 8y ago
How do you reconcíliate future meetings with future flow states? Unless you have the ability to pospone a meeting when you are flowing I don’t see how to do this, unless you’re able to build a pattern over time and use that information to preemptively inform the organizer of best suited times to schedule a meeting
- rob-d 8y ago
  I hadn't really thought this through, but the ability to 'snooze' a meeting sounds like something which could be really useful, especially when I'm on maker's schedule and I'm meeting someone on manager's schedule (terminology from here http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html). In fact, on a previous job, this happened a couple of times. I was in flow, finishing something off or pairing and I would forget about my 1-1, showing up 15/30 mins late. I was always really embarrassed, but actually it didn't affect the manager too badly because they had other things to be getting on with. My manager wanted a scheduler which satisfied the condition 'I would like to see all of my team members for at least 30 mins each on Wednesday', but they didn't mind who was seen when. In practice, these appointments were scheduled, by the manager, pretty much randomly I think, and fixed in advance, but something fluid could have worked. Perhaps it is inevitable that all makers want meetings at the beginning / end of the day, but I'm not sure, especially when there are other meetings etc going on. Also, perhaps the short term rearrangement would be so disruptive or unsettling that it wouldn't be practical. My experience in some jobs has been that this was happening anyway with people frequently late to meetings, so they were defacto snoozed anyway. As you say, if nothing else, such a system might surface some interesting data on which meetings were always missed / moved.
thrower123 8y ago
How would you do this? Firstly, flow isn't really something you plan, it's more like, you get working on something and oh my god, it's 5:30 already? Where'd the day go? Second, you can't just move meetings around, in my experience. Once something is scheduled, it calcifies; it's too much work coordinating time zones and schedules, and if you push something up, most people that were planning on it being later will be even more unprepared to discuss than usual.
- rob-d 8y ago
  This is a good point. I agree that having a 2 hour slot doesn't guarantee that I will get into a flow state, but it is a prerequisite for me to have a couple of hours at least to do this type of work. I think the idea of being able to loosely schedule certain meetings (eg "Give me the least worst 30 minutes for the 3 people this week") could be an interesting thing to try. Having a system which knows whether it is advisable to 'bring forward' or 'push back' a meeting could be a big help. I also think that if a meeting is continually pushed back or brought forward, this might be interesting information in and of itself, especially for recurring meetings. There could be downsides to this and I find it hard to even imagine what such a system would be like, given my current experience with Google Calendar, where even scheduling a meeting or room seems to be about 5 minute process.

by rob-d 8y ago

goliatone 8y ago

How do you reconcíliate future meetings with future flow states? Unless you have the ability to pospone a meeting when you are flowing I don’t see how to do this, unless you’re able to build a pattern over time and use that information to preemptively inform the organizer of best suited times to schedule a meeting

rob-d 8y ago
I hadn't really thought this through, but the ability to 'snooze' a meeting sounds like something which could be really useful, especially when I'm on maker's schedule and I'm meeting someone on manager's schedule (terminology from here http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html). In fact, on a previous job, this happened a couple of times. I was in flow, finishing something off or pairing and I would forget about my 1-1, showing up 15/30 mins late. I was always really embarrassed, but actually it didn't affect the manager too badly because they had other things to be getting on with. My manager wanted a scheduler which satisfied the condition 'I would like to see all of my team members for at least 30 mins each on Wednesday', but they didn't mind who was seen when. In practice, these appointments were scheduled, by the manager, pretty much randomly I think, and fixed in advance, but something fluid could have worked. Perhaps it is inevitable that all makers want meetings at the beginning / end of the day, but I'm not sure, especially when there are other meetings etc going on. Also, perhaps the short term rearrangement would be so disruptive or unsettling that it wouldn't be practical. My experience in some jobs has been that this was happening anyway with people frequently late to meetings, so they were defacto snoozed anyway. As you say, if nothing else, such a system might surface some interesting data on which meetings were always missed / moved.

thrower123 8y ago

How would you do this? Firstly, flow isn't really something you plan, it's more like, you get working on something and oh my god, it's 5:30 already? Where'd the day go? Second, you can't just move meetings around, in my experience. Once something is scheduled, it calcifies; it's too much work coordinating time zones and schedules, and if you push something up, most people that were planning on it being later will be even more unprepared to discuss than usual.

rob-d 8y ago
This is a good point. I agree that having a 2 hour slot doesn't guarantee that I will get into a flow state, but it is a prerequisite for me to have a couple of hours at least to do this type of work. I think the idea of being able to loosely schedule certain meetings (eg "Give me the least worst 30 minutes for the 3 people this week") could be an interesting thing to try. Having a system which knows whether it is advisable to 'bring forward' or 'push back' a meeting could be a big help. I also think that if a meeting is continually pushed back or brought forward, this might be interesting information in and of itself, especially for recurring meetings. There could be downsides to this and I find it hard to even imagine what such a system would be like, given my current experience with Google Calendar, where even scheduling a meeting or room seems to be about 5 minute process.