Zoom fatigue

Nowadays I spend at least half my working hours on Zoom calls with clients, partners, or internally. If I compare myself to 5 years ago, the average hours in meetings has slowly crept up. I do think that this is part of moving up on the org chart and your career.

As you advance to higher levels of the org chart, you’re naturally going to be spending more time in meetings and doing more strategic work versus just grinding work out individually or with a small team.

Unfortunately a by product of this is Zoom fatigue and it’s a real phenomenon that I’ve experienced a lot, especially recently. I generally like talking to people and like the social interaction. At the same time, after 6+ hours of calls a day, I find myself just absolutely zapped. By the time Friday hits, I’m usually in a position that I don’t want to speak to many people.

I don’t have a good solution to all this. I’ve heard that turning off the camera facing you will help with this and I’ve tried that. But at the end of the day, talking to people for hours upon hours is just exhausting whether it’s in person or via Zoom.

For now, I’ll be trying to limit meetings as much as possible and be focused on my sleep, rest, and recovery. To extent possible, I’m going off camera and taking things via phone call.