How not to zone out in a Zoom meeting

With the pandemic, you have probably realized that Zoom Fatigue is real and it is here to stay. As a result getting distracted, zoning out during the numerous Zoom video conference meetings that you have probably been having while working from home is very real. And to tackle this challenge, we have come up with ways to avoid getting distracted or zoned out in such meetings.

Dress sharp for the meeting

Before the pandemic hit the world and confined all of us to our homes, what was the usual practice for you every time you had an important meeting? You would make sure to attend a meeting with your clothes, hair and perhaps makeup completely on point. You would make sure to enter the meeting with all the essentials like your notepad, laptop, any documents, a bottle of water and maybe a snack. Some of you, might even reach the meeting a little early.

This entire process would get your mojo in place and ensure that you have a great meeting. Follow a similar pattern for your online meetings over Zoom too. Treat it like an actual meeting, spruce up and get ready just like you used to for your physical meetings earlier. Dress in your formals (okay maybe just the top!); keep your points of discussion ready, if not on a physical notepad, then on a word document on your computer. Ensure that your laptop is charged, internet connectivity is stable, the camera is in the right position, and log in to the meeting a few minutes early. This will help you take a minute or two to settle down, gather your thoughts, gauge the mood of the “room” and get mentally prepared to participate in the meeting.

Create a “meeting space” at home

One of the reasons people working from home find it difficult to concentrate during meetings on Zoom is that their is always too much happening around them in their house. You might be in the middle of an important discussion with your colleagues or clients on a Zoom call while sitting in your room, and someone from your family walks in. Alternately, sometimes you get too comfortable attending a meeting from your bed in your PJs.

The best solution then is to create your own meeting space or workspace at home. This can be that one corner in your house or your room that is identified as your no-disturb zone. Let your family know that once you are there, you are not be disturbed. This will also be a space where you will have your work desk with everything required to work from home, i.e. your computer, plug points, notepads, pens, adequate lighting, and most importantly, the space being somewhat away from the center of activities happening in the other rooms. By demarcating your working and non-working space, you can switch to a professional, working mindset as soon as you sit there and focus well.

Take notes, always. Whether it is required or not.

We consider this as the best way to stay alert, for it is a win-win situation for you while being on a Zoom call. When you’re regularly taking notes while being on the video call, you are pushing your mind to be focused on the conversation and latch on to important points which come across during the discussion and your mind begins to interpret it as a task to be completed. And once you get into the flow, it is unlikely that you will get zoned out.

Further, when you keep taking notes, it begins to brew thoughts and ideas in your head and you’ll be able to contribute more to the discussion. Once done, these notes can come in handy anytime in the future when you’re working on a related project and you won’t be kicking ourself trying to remember the points that were discussed during the call back then.

Put your phone away

If there’s one thing that will always break your focus while on a Zoom call, it is your phone. It is easy to get distracted with constant notifications of messages, emails, social media updates etc every few minutes. And when you’re on a Zoom call, in a room by yourself, you’ll be tempted even more. So keep the phone away. And make sure to attend Zoom meetings from a laptop or computer so that those notifications don’t interrupt your meeting zen.

You can always get back to the missed phone call or message and inform the person on the other end that you were in the middle of something, i.e. the meeting.

Avoid multitasking during the calls.

This is a no-brainer. The best way to have a productive Zoom meeting is by ONLY doing the meeting and nothing else. No additional tabs on the side with WhatsApp or any social media pages, no additional unnecessary windows or applications to be kept open during the call. It will not only cause a distraction to you while on the call but might cause technical issues too where you might struggle to keep up with the meeting application due to the overload on the computer.

In fact maximize your Zoom window, so it takes up the entire screen of your computer and nothing else is visible on your screen which may distract you. This will replicate entering a physical meeting room, where you were more keyed in because it was a “meeting room” with little opportunity to carry out your normal tasks.

Is a Zoom meeting required? And if yes, can it be made shorter?

Remember when employees used to say “This could have been an email!” after some meetings at work? You might have come across similar instances on Zoom calls too. Zoom meetings are great tools to replicate a feeling of team and group projects. They have been important in making us feel like we are in it together! And sometimes they might even reduce the time in communicating when compared to a physical meeting. However, Zoom Fatigue is also an actual thing,

which is why we suggest having shorter calls with specific points with smaller teams. This way, you can get a break in between two calls but also be more effective in assigning or executing tasks within teams. Ideally, keep a call as short as 30 minutes with only the required number of people participating in them. Since we now know that Zoom calls are here to stay and working from home or remotely will be commonplace, let’s implement these ideas to have productive meetings and have a healthy work environment.