Clockwise

The "Hybrid Trap" is real: poorly designed hybrid models hurt team productivity. Without clear guidelines on who’s meeting when and why, teams end up with more meetings, less focus time, and calendar overwhelm. Let’s get intentional about our hybrid setups. ❇️ #HybridWork

“Well, that’s how we’ve always done it," shouldn't apply to meetings. Challenge the status quo with these 6 tactics –– 🙅 Establish "No Meeting Days": Propose dedicated days for focused work by blocking off the calendar entirely from meetings. 📆 Batch Meetings: Suggest scheduling meetings back-to-back to minimize disruptions and allow for longer, uninterrupted focus periods. ⏱️ Suggest a "5-Minute Rule": Encourage quick five-minute chats via Slack or email for simple matters instead of scheduling full meetings. ⏳ Limit Meeting Duration: Challenge the default 60-minute meetings and advocate for shorter, more efficient time slots (e.g., 15 or 30 minutes). 📧 Use Asynchronous Communication: Promote async tools like Loom videos, voice memos, or detailed emails for non-urgent updates, reducing the need for live meetings. 🔓 Make it Flexible: Give some wiggle room for important meetings that don't have to happen at a specific time – like recurring 1:1s - to make space for more urgent needs.

Can we have both a 4-day workweek and flexibility? Not yet. To make either work, companies need stronger scheduling strategies that allow for deep work while balancing collaboration time. Here are three ways to start shifting toward that goal: 1️⃣ Prioritize Time Blocking for Deep Work: Ensure employees have dedicated, uninterrupted focus time each day. Tools that automatically carve out time blocks for deep work (👋), are essential. Without this structure, a 4-day workweek could lead to frantic, unproductive days. 2️⃣ Batch Meetings for Collaboration: Rather than scattering meetings throughout the week, batch them into specific days or times. This creates larger chunks of uninterrupted time for focused work on the remaining days. For example, designate Mondays and Thursdays for collaboration, leaving the rest of the week for focused execution. 3️⃣ Set Flexible Core Hours: While maintaining a 4-day workweek, allow employees to choose their start and end times within a set window (e.g., 10 AM - 2 PM). This ensures overlap for meetings but gives team members the flexibility to work around personal schedules, boosting both morale and #productivity.

Meetings spiraled out of control during the pandemic—but where do we stand 4 years later? We dug into 28 months of meeting data from Clockwise users and found some interesting trends. Here are 5 surprising insights we uncovered: 1️⃣ Meetings get longer as the year goes on. 👀 2️⃣ The higher up you go on the ladder, the longer your meetings get. Execs, we see you logging those extra hours… 3️⃣ Distributed teams = longer meetings. Hmm, is that better or worse for productivity? 4️⃣ Smaller companies have fewer meetings, but they last longer. 5️⃣ The silver lining? Meeting lengths are trending down overall. But it’s a slow shift. Swipe through to get the full scoop. ↔️📈❇️

By 4 PM, are your decisions more like reflexes than thoughtful choices? That’s decision fatigue, and it’s real. When your brain is overloaded, even simple choices feel exhausting. The solution? Create a smarter schedule: • Block recovery time in the afternoon for a mental reset. • Use the morning for complex tasks, saving routine work for later. • And don’t forget to add ‘no-decision zones’—moments in your day dedicated to recharging, not reacting. Fighting decision fatigue isn’t just about better choices—it’s about reclaiming your mental energy.

Calendly dropped their 2024 State of Meetings report. So much good stuff in there, but this caught my eye: "43% of respondents spend 3+ hours a week scheduling meetings" and that's up 36% from last year! I've spilled a lot of ink on this subject over the years, but the collective amount of time wasted on calendar management is getting worse every year. There's a law of collaboration at play here: as the friction to communication goes down, time spent collaborating goes up. This isn't inherently a bad thing — more collaboration may be good for your business — but it's the correlation that's important. Technology has done an incredible amount of work over the last several decades to reduce all friction of communication, which means that absent other force, everyone's going to spend more time collaborating. https://lnkd.in/gMZNTi9F

Whether you're running a startup, managing personal projects, or optimizing daily tasks, #AI agents are your ticket to a better workflow. Get the basics in this weekend read.

More often than not, your time is dictated by the demands of colleagues and collaborators. Let's get you back in control.

Struggling to find focus time amidst the chaos? Clockwise creates uninterrupted blocks of time so your team can focus on their priorities. Time to optimize your workday.

Scheduling is hard... But it doesn't have to be. #Productivity #FutureofWork