Re:How do you balance writing code with constant meetings?
by 100011_100001 on Tuesday March 30, 2021 @01:26PM
(#26637502)
> 1) Block off a day (or two) for no meetings
Having analyzed my own productivity patterns it seems that I can at max work on code for 2 hours straight without a break. After that I need time to reset, stop thinking about code so I can re-evaluate my design choices, variable names etc. That time appears to be about 1 hour.
So in theory if I had a day or two of no meetings, I wouldn't be coding the whole day. Ideally I would be the most productive having 2 hours of uninterrupted time in the morning, and another 2 in the afternoon, but that's really hard to delineate.
> 2) If there is no agenda, no clear reason for meeting, I decline or email them asking for clarity for the meeting reason. If it is something that can be answered via email or slack, I typically try to encourage a response via those methods.
The thing that gets me is that most meetings are tangentially useful to me. No one posts meeting minutes though, so unless I am there I don't know what the end decision is which might or might not affect me. I have debated doing this, asking for an agenda, but I seem to hesitate.
> I forgot to add that I try to encourage people to schedule meetings during my non productive times.
I do this as well, but there are so many instances where I am all primed to write code and a meeting is about to start in 15-20 minutes.
Having analyzed my own productivity patterns it seems that I can at max work on code for 2 hours straight without a break. After that I need time to reset, stop thinking about code so I can re-evaluate my design choices, variable names etc. That time appears to be about 1 hour.
So in theory if I had a day or two of no meetings, I wouldn't be coding the whole day. Ideally I would be the most productive having 2 hours of uninterrupted time in the morning, and another 2 in the afternoon, but that's really hard to delineate.
> 2) If there is no agenda, no clear reason for meeting, I decline or email them asking for clarity for the meeting reason. If it is something that can be answered via email or slack, I typically try to encourage a response via those methods.
The thing that gets me is that most meetings are tangentially useful to me. No one posts meeting minutes though, so unless I am there I don't know what the end decision is which might or might not affect me. I have debated doing this, asking for an agenda, but I seem to hesitate.
> I forgot to add that I try to encourage people to schedule meetings during my non productive times.
I do this as well, but there are so many instances where I am all primed to write code and a meeting is about to start in 15-20 minutes.