Virtual Co-working
I have strong opinions on meetings. I was an instant fan of 37 Signals when they famously came out hard against meetings in their book and I was nodding along with a recent podcast episode by Adam Grant called Why meetings suck and how to improve them. One of the suggestions was having your IT department implement an "Armeetinggeddon", where every meeting is wiped from every calendar. What would happen apparently is that some meetings would work their way back, but not nearly as many. People would find that many meetings weren't necessary. Other organizations implement a barrier for meetings with more than a few people, like maybe you have to calculate the cost of the meeting (using some average salary number times the number of people) and put it in the invite.
So when a co-worker of mine enthusiastically told us about a service called FLOWN that she started using that amounts to opting in to virtual meetings with strangers (called Flocks), I was slightly horrified. Maybe more than slightly. But after the trial she stuck with the platform and continuously had extremely good things to say about it. She's also one of the most productive people I know.
These aren't meetings but focus sessions, and that's a very different thing apparently. The idea is that you sign into a session, let people know what you'll be working on for the next hour or two (however long the session is), and then go heads-down and work. Once the session is up you go around and let people know how it went–and that's it for the basic setup. I was still dubious. Wouldn't it be weird as hell having your camera on with a bunch of random strangers who could probably give a shit less about what you're working on? I've done things like the Pomodoro Technique in the past to try to keep myself on track. Isn't that just as good?
Some time passed and I didn't really think about this much but then, several people in my organization started a Friday "co-working" session that's basically what I described above. It was inspired by several people in our development department who, when it comes time to call a bunch of people, will jump on a Zoom call together, mute, and then do their thing. They call it having an "accountabilibuddy". Separately, I ran across an article basically validating the effect behind these types of focus sessions. I can't find the article now unfortunately, but FLOWN has an impressive list of studies backing their tools. Some of these are well known, like trying to be very intentional about carving out stints of focused time and setting intentions, but the studies behind mirror neurons (just having people around you working is a signal to your brain that it's time to work) or body doubles was new to me.
Over the last couple of weeks my coworker was able to invite our department to several sessions and, I have to say, I'm convinced. They have basically none of the baggage of a meeting but are more like Pomodoro sessions on steroids. On the one hand that's surprising since it really is mostly just a virtual call, but the framework: the setting an intention, saying it out loud, and carving out the time is the key ingredient. Occasionally I'll go to a coffee shop or co-working space to work and it's basically for the same reason, it's a very clear signal that this is time to get something done.
Anyhow, to my amazement, I'm a fan. I'm not sure yet whether I'll get a subscription, but I'll certainly keep going to the ones hosted at work.