Scheduling techniques for remote meetings
The spread of remote work has changed how meetings are set up. With no physical travel involved, meetings get scheduled too casually. The ease of calling one in a single click whenever there is an open slot fills calendars with meetings. This is the pitfall of remote environments.
Challenges specific to remote meetings
Cognitive load that builds up from back-to-back video meetings. Professor Bailenson of Stanford University (2021) points to nonverbal burdens such as close-range eye gaze and constantly seeing your own video as causes.
Without a commute, the edges of the workday become unclear, and early-morning or late-night meetings creep in.
Switching between meetings and work happens instantly, making it hard to reach a state of deep focus (flow).
Scheduling principles for remote meetings
- Set core hours. Make clear the hours when the whole team is available for meetings (for example, 10:00-16:00), and do not put meetings outside them
- Make meetings 25 or 50 minutes. Cutting 5 minutes from 30 or 60 minutes automatically secures buffer time before the next meeting
- Mark which meetings allow cameras off. Do not force cameras on in every meeting. For information-sharing meetings, cameras off reduces fatigue
- Do not turn topics that can be handled asynchronously into meetings. Before setting up a meeting, ask yourself, "Does this topic really need a synchronous discussion?" (see choosing between sync and async)
Automation through tool integration
In remote environments, make full use of your calendar tool's features to cut the effort of coordinating.
- Publish your free time automatically. Use your calendar's appointment slots or a booking page so others can book directly from your open time
- Skip meeting room booking. Remote meetings do not need a physical room. Use the tool's automatic URL generation
- Send reminders automatically. An automatic notification 10 minutes before the meeting prevents no-shows
Protecting focus time
An EEG study by the Microsoft Human Factors Lab (2021) confirmed that without breaks between meetings, the brain's stress indicator (beta waves) keeps building up, and that a 10-minute break resets it. Registering focus time as blocks on your calendar and setting meeting invitations during those hours to be declined automatically is effective.