I strive to be a very efficient person, as evidenced by the well over 100 posts in the “productivity” category of this blog. I try to be careful, though, as efficiency has very little to do with being effective, and the latter is far more important.
Kevin Paul Scott laid this out beautifully in a recent blog post of his, where he summed it up like this when discussing remote/Zoom meetings vs in-person:
We take work that would be accomplished more effectively if done together, and instead we opt for efficiency and do it alone.
When it comes to things like Zoom, it’s certainly a tough balance. There is no doubt that it’s more efficient to meet via Zoom, but also that it’s more effective to meet in person.
At the end of the day, simply facing that question will help you to make wise decisions. While in-person is more effective, there are certainly many cases where meeting via Zoom makes more sense for all parties.
I’m as guilty as anyone of just defaulting to remote meetings, even when getting together might make more sense. It’s certainly something I’ll be chewing on, and I suspect I’ll pivot more of them away from Zoom in the future.
