How to battle Zoom fatigue when meetings are out of your control

Did you see the Shark Tank episode where the founder of Beulr pitched his app for attending Zoom meetings with a faux, looped video of yourself instead of having to show up live? You can’t make this stuff up. As a college student, he built a solution for “attending” 8am lectures so he could sleep in.

In the online working world, we can’t fake our attendance. You never know when someone might ask you a question, and you can’t rely on a looped video to answer on your behalf.

With cloning ourselves out of the question for now, we need other ways to deal Zoom fatigue — the phenomenon of exhaustion and low productivity caused by too many meetings.

Below, I share my top strategies for dealing with this issue, plus how to keep your calendar from getting full in the first place.

Yes, Zoom fatigue is very real

You end a day of meetings feeling burned out, and like you didn’t even get a chance to accomplish what you set out to do.

Here’s the science behind this all-too-common feeling:

• Neurological effects of socializing — Everyone has a different barometer for how much socializing they can take, but on average, adult humans get tired after about 3 hours of socializing. This is hardwired into our brains, and when we go over our personal limit, we get a social hangover.
• Stress caused by low productivity — Not getting things done is stressful. You’re evaluated by your KPIs, not how many meetings you attended. When we have too many meetings, we’re stuck dealing with the stress and blowback of not achieving our work goals.
• Self-consciousness — Humans aren’t accustomed to staring at their own faces for hours a day. When in video calls, people typically can see their own face somewhere on the screen, leading to increased self-judgment. It’s no wonder that cosmetic surgery and non-invasive procedures have experienced a “Zoom Boom.”
• Unnatural non-verbal communication — Video meetings don’t feel quite right. The slight delay and lake of non-verbal cues make it awkward to know when it’s your turn to speak. Plus, the extreme amount of eye contact can be intense and tiring.

7 ways to cope with Zoom fatigue

Unfortunately, the number of meetings on your calendar isn’t always under your control. When you’ve got a day full of meetings ahead, here’s how to get through it without feeling like you got hit by a train at the end of the day.

1. Don’t multitask during calls

It’s tempting to try and get things done during meetings that don’t require 100% of your attention, but the stress caused by multitasking is often more trouble than it’s worth. Neurologically speaking, you’ll be better off focusing on the meeting and getting things done afterward than taxing your brain by multitasking during the meeting and ultimately slowing down your productivity for the rest of the day.

2. Stop staring at your own face

That little video of you floating at the top of your screen? Hide it! Put a browser or empty Word doc on top of your video so you can prevent yourself from feeling self-conscious all day.

3. Choose voice over video meetings occasionally

When you can, choose audio instead of video meetings. This reduces the lag time so that audio can transmit more naturally. This also prevents everyone from staring at themselves and feeling self-conscious. Of course, video meetings have their uses (team building and camaraderie) but know that it’s okay to do voice sometimes too.

4. Stick to a meeting agenda

Studies show that a lack of meeting agendas is a big contributor to ineffective meetings. Keep meetings short and on track by creating a meeting agenda and sticking to it. The shorter your meetings, the less Zoom fatigue.

5. Stand up or walk during meetings

A sedentary lifestyle is bad for your body. Sitting all day can contribute to chronic illnesses such as heart disease and diabetes. Turn a day of meetings into a positive thing by standing up or walking around. You can purchase a standup desk that moves up and down with the click of a button to make this tip easier to implement. When you use meetings as a way to take care of yourself, you might feel energized after the meetings, instead of depleted.

6. Designate a meeting moderator for large groups

For meetings of 5 or more people, it’s wise to have a moderator in charge of noticing who wants to speak next and giving them the floor. Otherwise, everyone has to deal with the tiring and obnoxious task of determining when to interject. You can use a “raise hand” feature, or ask people to drop a “next” or another word in the chat. Then the chosen moderator can call on everyone when it’s their turn to talk.

7. Take notes on what isn’t working, so you can address it proactively

The meetings you have this week might be out of your control. But you can take steps to protect your future calendar. If you have too many meetings this week, set up a doc and take notes on what worked and didn’t work for each meeting. Were some of them unnecessary for you to attend? Did some of them lack agendas? Proactively reach out to the right people at your company to address these issues.

Knowing that you’re taking steps to make the situation better will reduce your stress in the present moment.

How to prevent your calendar from getting stuffed with meetings

Many companies are still finding their way with remote and hybrid work.

Here’s how to make sure that everyone is working together to keep calendars clear.

1. Don’t use meetings as a way to measure engagement and participation

Meetings should not be a tool for checking whether or not employees are doing their work. In fact, meetings prevent employees from getting things done. Instead, use the right KPIs for each individual and keep meetings for only necessary real-time communication.

2. Rely on asynchronous video and audio recordings when possible

Asynch communication tools allow employees to share information on their terms. At the two companies I run, we typically check our asynch comments and recordings in the morning, work for a few hours, then check them again in the afternoon. Rather than spend hours in meetings, we spend minutes listening to short recordings.

3. Set company guidelines for communication

Preventing Zoom fatigue requires buy-in from the whole company. Companies have all sorts of policies, such as offboarding policies and travel policies. Why not create a meeting policy? You can include guidelines for using asynch tools over meetings, keeping team and company-wide meetings to a minimum, and always working off of agendas.

4. Create no-call days and batch your meetings

Teams and companies can also set no-call days. You might have no-call Wednesdays. Or each individual team can choose the right no-call day for them. You can also batch meetings. For example, you might encourage the company to do all meetings in the afternoon unless time zones are an issue for a particular meeting.

5. Foster a company culture of trust

Battling Zoom fatigue requires slashing unnecessary Zoom meetings. But you can’t do that (or any of the tips above), if your company culture isn’t built on a foundation of trust.

Trust your team to do their work and to protect each other’s calendars. If you’re concerned about your company culture, survey employees to discover specific issues to resolve. Show your employees that you care about their mental health by getting meetings under control.

When we get rid of unnecessary meetings, we can better enjoy the times that we come together live with colleagues and customers.

Meetings should be a positive way to interact with each other, not a sanity killer.