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How to be productive during boring meetings?
What productive tasks can you achieve when forced to sit through a boring meeting? Things that can be done in an environment with continual audible distractions and occasional interruptions needing your attention.
Here is one strategy from pp. 51-2 of Csikzentmihalyi's book on Flow: "Heinz Maier-Leibnitz, the famous German experimental physicist ... provides an intriguing example of how one can take control of a boring situation and turn it into a mildly enjoyable one. ... To alleviate [the burden of sitting through boring conferences] he invented a private activity that provides just enough challenges for him not to be completely bored during a dull lecture, but is so automated that it leaves enough attention free so that if something interesting is being said, it will register in his awareness. ... Whenever a speaker begins to get tedious, he starts to tap [his fingers in a regular pattern] ... there are 888 combinations one can move through without repeating the same pattern... Professor Maier-Leibnitz found an interesting use for it: as a way of measuring the length of trains of thought...Suppose a thought ... occurs in his consciousness while he is tapping during a boring lecture. He immediately shifts attention to his fingers, and registers the fact that he is at the 300th tap of the second series; then in the same split second he returns to the train of thought. [When the train of thought is complete, he calculates how far the series of tapping progressed while he was thinking.]"
- rms 19y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kegel_exercise http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kegel_exercise
- staunch 19y agoI've become a much better sketch artist because of boring meetings over the years. I also spend the time going over the design of whatever system I'm currently working on, reading articles I've printed out, dreaming up cute domains to buy, and thinking about my own projects. Generally I'm pretty forceful when it comes to avoiding useless meetings though. I'll frequently skip them even when repeatedly prodded.
- henning 19y agoMaybe you should do what you're supposed to do (be bored and unhappy) so it'll force you to examine the circumstances that led you to be in boring meetings frequently enough that you post something on the Internet asking about what to do about it.
- marcus 19y agoHere is my solution for boring meetings, charge money for them. It usually won't be money that gets funneled into your private pocket, it will be added to a team war-chest for fun-days, extra training and offsite activities. The reason that so many useless meetings exist is that no one has to float the bill. The second some suit in a different department needs to justify the expenses of calling too many people to too many non-productive meetings they diminish drastically.
- mhb 19y ago"Meetings are not always about the efficient exchange of information..." http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2004/01/how_to_improve_.html http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2004/01...
- marcus 19y agoIt doesn't really matter what the purpose of the meeting is, it costs the organization money in lost time & productivity, so someone needs to be billed for it. You want a display of power, great - float the damn bill for your show.
- lowfat 19y agoTap while you are bored and keep count of how long each daydream lasts using your tapping!?! That sounds even more boring than the boring meeting! Doodling is waaay better!
- ivankirigin 19y agoDon't go to boring meetings. If people complain, they'll have a reason -- something you might have missed. Make the meeting about that which you missed, and you're fine. If you can't change the meeting to accommodate, chances are the meeting is too big in scope. Refactor.
- Tichy 19y agoAsk for permission to leave?
- gills 19y agoJust Leave.
- chaostheory 19y agoI typically just fall asleep
- Xichekolas 19y agoThat works for me too...
- nickhac 19y agoyagibear, are u in syd?
- yagibear 19y agoYes, yagibear at gmail dot con