Yup, and getting older makes it harder to catch up to that damn train of thoughts after that useless ass meeting interrupted them.
100%. I try to keep working through them and only participate when my name is called.
I often skip meetings without agenda. If they don’t care to prepare a reasonable invitation, I don’t care to join. Also - I skip meetings where they announce stuff. Announcements should go to my inbox, so I can read them when ready, not when they think it’s suitable for them.
Forgot the pre-meeting dip of preparing for meeting or being in waiting-mode.
Meetings are part of the productive time.
I’m serious. Politics are a good chunk of the job, meetings is a major place for that. What happens there can have dramatic effects on how long something takes and therefore on the “produced output per unit of time.” I’ve been at it for 13 years now and embracing that has had positive results on my well-being and career. 🥹
We make a lot of sausage in meetings. Brainstorm ideas and figure out what the challenges will be. Having all five or six people there at once is much more efficient than taking back the forth to each one individually.
There are status update meetings, but those are so other people know what you’re doing so if it effects them they can work with it.
I find it great when we have a meeting every other half hour. I get a lot done on those days.
In my previous job, I was asked to break focus every 15 minutes to check my email and see if one of my coworkers was falling behind on dealing with a queue of tasks, then pitch in if he was. I hated the job in general, but that in particular just ruined any possibility of productivity. Hard for anyone, near impossible for someone with ADHD. Then I got blamed for falling behind on my work. And for being disorganized (we didn’t have a ticket tracker, hmmm).