Cloud docs vs Meetings

This article is not what you think, it is not about about which is the best, Zoomies vs CostaCoffeeCup’s… Rather, this little ditty is more about why we still waste time having meetings ever AT ALL?

Photo by Maranda Vandergriff on Unsplash

The amount of time we spend in meetings, discussing cloud based boards/ kanbans/ forms/ charts/ spreadsheets which are all working draft documents collaborated upon by multiple users in a groups or team across a distributed company business.

We’ve had some beef with this subject for a while now and I just wanted to take a minute to air some thoughts and get this off our chest.

Now, (imo), there’s a solid argument to say, that if you are working in real-time on a shared cloud based document which in itself has a dedicated chat channel to post updates/ changes notifications, why oh why do we EVER need a meeting to discuss the state of said document?

Some of us just don’t get it, it's illogical? Maybe we’re missing a trick (or some marbles), but if a document is being updated in real-time alongside peoples flow state, then there is no reason to have a meeting, (including all owners), for 1/2/3 hrs, to go over what is there in black and white for all to see.

As long as individual owners with independent access and roles know how and what they are required to take away from such a platform/document, SURELY we should never need a meeting to discuss the document state?

Staying in flow is priceless. Finding the time to lose ourselves in our work is becoming harder and harder, (as also pointed out on this day by a certain Mr. Godin).

It’s time to believe in ourselves, believe in the technology to which we owe our livelihoods, without commentary or doubt, to take back some flow time and remove the conceptual need to ‘meet’ to discuss what is already there, in thin air.