Gemma Gilmore, Business Director, Spark Foundry — Yesterday, I had video meetings from 9.00-17.15. I was exhausted and my body ached. It’s obvious why I was sore and stiff (from sitting in a bad chair all day!) but why was I so mentally exhausted when I often had days jam packed with meetings pre COVID19.
I decided to look into the psychology of this to understand the exhaustion and I thought I’d share:
While we might have assumed so, we can officially confirm that video calls are more intense than normal meetings or phone calls. An article from Forbes explains this intensity. Firstly, you can’t take visual breaks. Your eyes need to be focused on everything and everything is close to you. This is physically exhausting and it’s socially exhausting to have to be so focused on a conversation. Video calls are also seen as ‘high intensity virtual connections’ (Psychology Today) and we just can’t operate at high intensity for these prolonged periods.
So, in Spark Foundry, we’re creating periods of the week where meetings cannot be scheduled. This creates a break from these high intensity periods but also, to be frank, it gives people time to get the work done (which is usually created on the back of these meetings!). This ‘flow time’ gives people an uninterrupted period to focus on a task and get it off the list. We’ve done this by mapping out all reoccurring meetings across the agency and then with some minor moves, we have identified some clear flow times.
I need to stress here how important video calls are, to allow us to remain connected. I personally need them because I perform better with people around me, so I find WFH quite tough. However, the point and the learning for me here, is to ensure balance - enough video meetings to keep me connected with my amazing colleagues but with enough breaks and 'flow time' to make sure that I’m performing at the right level.
If you have similar experiences from working remotely that may help others and you’d like to share, either by video or as a blog, please send your thoughts to gus@iapi.com and he will share in the IAPI weekly eDM to other members.
