Tip: Zoning out at virtual meetings?

Posted by Hailey Heimbach on Thursday, April 24, 2025

Tip: Zoning out at virtual meetings?

Recent research from Ireland, Austria, and Finland reveals that "virtual meeting fatigue" is real and there are strategies to manage it. The team interviewed 30 management consultants and IT professionals from high-profile companies and some advice was: have meeting-free days, have breaks if meetings go long, and make personal behaviour changes.

A MIT SLOAN Management Review article, Virtual Meetings and Your Brain: Four Ways to Refresh (by Eoin Whelan, René Riedl, Markus Salo, and Henri Pirkkalainen) shares four action steps to mitigate virtual meeting fatigue:

1. Mix in audio-only meetings. If visual interaction isn't essential, go ‘old school’ for a refreshing change.

2. Adopt a single virtual meeting platform. Trying to learn new interfaces is one more thing to add to the cognitive overload of video meetings. (But if you work with clients using other platforms it’s it is important to get practice on them so things go smoothly).

3. Practice IT mindfulness. One example was this: “I am always changing the background, the audience view, the microphone settings … just trying to get the meeting to feel more natural. Virtual meetings don’t sap my energy as much anymore.”

4. Switch off self-view. This is self-explanatory.

SHEPA LEARNING COMPANY WEEKLY POSITIVE NETWORKING® TIP​
​No. 1109, April 23, 2025​
​By Gayle Hallgren and Judy Thomson

Categories: General

Tagged: General, Information, Chamber, Tips and Tricks