How to Banish Virtual Meeting Boredom

Can virtual meetings be as effective as in-person ones?

It’s one thing to eliminate distractions in meetings. It’s another to do the same in virtual meetings.

Now that virtual teams are becoming a norm, many coworkers have never met each other in person. Yet, they’re expected to work every day toward a shared goal. Rapport and trust become even more crucial in virtual workplaces but also may be trickier to establish.

I’ve written extensively on how teams can have more effective meetings. For virtual teams, many of the overarching practices are the same. But there are a few extra steps virtual teams can take to have distraction-free meetings.

Schedule Fewer Meetings

Before you try any other methods for distraction-free meetings, start here: Be conservative about scheduling meetings.

In a Zoom survey, 71 percent of professionals said the information shared on some video calls could have been disseminated in chat or email.

It’s no secret that cutting superfluous meetings is key to reducing distraction and promoting a healthy, functional workplace. For virtual workplaces, that’s more true.

Scheduling only important meetings is critical to strong communication between virtual teams without…