We tend to be interested in important things we're competent at. That's how we got competent at them in the first place. Shepherding interest - trying to figu

We tend to be interested in important things we're competent at. That's how we got competent at them in the first place. Shepherding interest - trying to figure out what's interesting about something important that you haven't tackled yet - can be useful to get competent at new things, of course. In the emergency room, the pathologist will be interested in the sick kid instead of the guy with the broken leg, even if the latter is "more important". Unless the staff are getting overwhelmed by a mass-casualties incident, that's probably actually the right approach. (I'm no doctor though.) I like email and other asynchronous/recorded communication for collaboration where possible, in lieu of synchronous meetings interrupting flow. But as you point out, there's a lot of cases where this doesn't work. And even a bunch of lone wolves working on solo projects can benefit from synchronizing lunch with their coworkers for some socialization and facetime. I schedule that. It's flexible and not super rigid, but it's still a schedule.