Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Yeah, I completely agree that it is inefficient. In fact, it's not possible to do two things at once. You can't pay attention to something that is on a laptop and pay attention to someone talking at the same time. It seems like you can, but you can't. Even a 10 second glance is enough to throw off what the person is saying for those 10 seconds. The brain has a way of tuning it out instantly.
The only way you can do things at once is if you're doing something passive and active at the same time. For instance, if you have some background music, and have someone talking at the same time, then that's doable. Likewise if you're folding clothes and listening to music that's doable too. That's because the task you're doing is simple, but also because you're actually tuning out the music, when you need to concentrate on folding clothes.
Yeah, I completely agree that it is inefficient. In fact, it's not possible to do two things at once. You can't pay attention to something that is on a laptop and pay attention to someone talking at the same time. It seems like you can, but you can't. Even a 10 second glance is enough to throw off what the person is saying for those 10 seconds. The brain has a way of tuning it out instantly.
The only way you can do things at once is if you're doing something passive and active at the same time. For instance, if you have some background music, and have someone talking at the same time, then that's doable. Likewise if you're folding clothes and listening to music that's doable too. That's because the task you're doing is simple, but also because you're actually tuning out the music, when you need to concentrate on folding clothes.
Also, there's a lot of truth in this. Multitasking is a myth in a lot of cases.
For actually getting down what you said, I type faster than I write.
IMO, if anyone wants what he's got to say to be retained, he should document it and disseminate the document.
Otherwise, the meeting ought to make sure everyone is on the same page, identify decisions and courses of action verbally (which will also be documented immediately after the meeting), and understand what they'll be accountable for.
While this is true for high school and college students, I do not really feel that applies to my situation. Most of what I am doing on my laptop is adding deadlines and dates to my calendar. I set it up so reminders pop up. MUCH more efficient to simply do that immediately. Also, websites are often discussed, so I simply pull those up immediately and bookmark them into the folder. Again, much more efficient, IMO.
At some tech places, one person will want to make updates to some shared, intranet resource, like a calendar, document, project, code, etc. No point in adding a middle man by transcribing pages of typing from paper. It's double work.
Sometimes, the presentation being following works better from your own laptop, as they can never get the resolution of the projection high enough, and only those in the front few rows can make out any of the text you'd be able to see on your own screen.
Speaking of high school and college students....
Quote:
Originally Posted by impulsivetravelerguy
In my video, I talk about this. Take notes on a pad of paper. Maybe have 1 designated minutes\notes taker. I always just show up to meetings with my pad of paper and pen.
When people get bored without a laptop nor phone, sure, they can't play games nor surf the internet. However, they can still be distracted. I've seen fellow students just draw (and I've seen some pretty good drawings to boot!), play tic tac toe against themselves or someone next to them, or do other stuff like draw out their to do list (work or personal).
As much as I'd hate to say this, fire anybody who's not paying attention, as there's only so many restrictions you can place on folks. They either pay attention, or they don't, independent of what distractions they have, electronic or not.
Well, one suggestion would be to do something like this
Also, there's a lot of truth in this. Multitasking is a myth in a lot of cases.
The point is, you're always tuning out one thing or another. In the case of listening to music and playing video games, for example, you're going to be hearing the music, but not necessarily listening as you play, but then if you get to a difficult section of a video game, you'll completely tune out the music, and then when you finish you'll start hearing it again.
What you don't want to do is be doing two things at the same time that both require your attention, because that's not possible. You always tune out one or the other, and multitasking is about doing something that can easily be ignored at any moment, without it affecting what you're doing.
Then, the other scenario is when you've developed a skill and can do something without really thinking about it, so you can sing and dance at the same time, for example. That takes skill and lots of practice to get to that point, but again, the activity doesn't actually require conscious effort, it's happening with muscle memory and it just kind of happens, because you've practiced it enough and have gained that skill.
It was expected at my employer. If you were invited to a meeting that would last say two or three hours,and your presentation took 15 minutes,you were deemed a slacker if you weren't working during the meeting. I always hated it because typing is very disruptive when you are trying to listen. But that's the way it is in bigger companies.
Depends who it is. My bosses or other managers could be attending to something more important than what the meeting is going over at that time, or they are not really "needed" at the meeting and just attending, or they just have some small part in a meeting that is coming up or is over. For subordinates, not allowed at all unless they let me know in advance of something.
What do you guys think about people not fully paying attention in a meeting? It seems like they become more inefficient because stuff is constantly repeated and nobody is paying attention.
Most of the meetings I go to are pointless, boring, and could have been handled with an e-mail. Either that, or my presence at the meeting was not required.
Personally, I resent having my time wasted and if I feel like the meeting is unstructured or irrelevant to me...you bet your butt I'll open my laptop and start working on something else. You can make me sit in the seat, but you can't make me listen.
Additionally...if you're the one calling the meeting, you need to CONTROL the meeting. Think about your audience and ask yourself if they REALLY need to be there, or if you or someone else can send them notes later. Most people I know despise being forced to sit in a pointless meeting.
Meetings are also not supposed to be a stream-of-consciousness exercise or an excuse to corral people in a room to "whiteboard" a problem for an interminable amount of time. (Set up a war room for that crap.)
With meetings, HAVE A POINT. Have an AGENDA. And CONTROL THE FLOW.
Show some respect to the people you're forcing to sit at the table and listen to you.
It was expected at my employer. If you were invited to a meeting that would last say two or three hours,and your presentation took 15 minutes,you were deemed a slacker if you weren't working during the meeting. I always hated it because typing is very disruptive when you are trying to listen. But that's the way it is in bigger companies.
Kind of like people who judge time in seat as a good way of how productive people are so you have people who stretch 20 hours of work into 60 and, because they go home late every night, they think these poeple must be working hard.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
