Don’t get me wrong, I love Zoom and think it’s great. But I also see the benefit of having a day where you can work on other things and do the work that you’ve scheduled instead.
Other wonderful ideas I have heard of include shortening meetings to 30 or 45 minutes instead of an hour. According to Parkinson’s Law, we fill the time we give a task. Or meeting in this case.
If that’s not possible, then at least shorten it to 55 minutes so that you can have a 5-minute break before going into your next meeting. Remember those days when you would come out of an office and walk down the corridor to your next meeting. That’s the 5 minutes I am talking about. The time you get to wind down for a moment and gear up for the next, changing your hat and focus.
I know it’s often easier to go along with what is normal and not ask for changes but if we manage to gain some minutes or even a whole day back, that’s valuable and well worth asking for.
What are you going to ask for?