Complaints about office meetings are often complained of by office workers. Moreover, the pandemic situation that requires workers to always stay in front of the laptop makes them sometimes feel bored. Especially if the meeting barrages every day. There is always a topic of discussion. Starting from important things to scorn here and there. More and more, meetings seem to be a medium of communication for office workers and superiors to discuss ideas for the survival of the company. The holding of an office meeting if binoculars has two sides.

The positive side of having a meeting is that the presence of employees can produce the best decisions for the progress of the company. But the negative effect is that meetings often take up the work time of the workers. There are those who complain about being bored, tired, tired and seem dry or just flat when an office meeting is held. A formal impression with a serious atmosphere often makes them sleepy, easily bored.

Moreover, with a long meeting duration, their duties or work might even become messy because of this unfinished meeting. In fact, it has become our culture that meetings take a long time. Not on point and straight discussion. Based on my experience, sometimes meeting times seem delayed due to being busy here and there and not being on time according to the previously promised meeting schedule. Not to mention if there are consecutive meetings and lots of work here and there. There's no pause though. It really drains our time, energy, mind and mentality, we certainly see the hectic schedule of meetings in a row every week.

At least there are some psychological effects that occur and are felt by workers when attending office meetings both online and offline. For those of you, of course, often and don't realize that you certainly experience the effects when we are taking part in offline or online office meetings. What are the effects of it.

»» Fear of Missing Out or FOMO

One of the most common reasons when we attend many office meetings that barrage is a sense of FOMO or Fear of Missing Out. When other divisions work better, their tasks are completed well, the targets are achieved, the bonuses are classy. Meanwhile, when we attend the meeting, our division is blamed for acting not according to the job description, lack of achievement, lack of cohesion so that in the meeting it seems as if they are arguing and blaming each other for their performance.

They feel far behind others, always want more than others, usually like to be compared. However, everyone has their own way of achieving their goals.

The solution to overcome the Fear of Missing Out when attending office meetings is to first ask other people for input on what it should be like. If this is a team work, it is hoped that it will be even closer in building relationships with colleagues. Because our goals are to achieve automatic targets, we need input if our performance is bad. Avoid blaming each other and comparing in forums. Second, minimize multitasking.

Often people come to meetings for the purpose of multitasking, not focusing on the discussion of the meeting. Multitasking is actually okay but remember your focus will be dispersed because of the distractions that come from all directions. Limit excessive use of devices so as not to avert our eyes and stay focused.

»» Selfish Urgency or the Urgency of Personal Ego

Often people if they feel tired and tired they think ah, just skip the meeting. Tired of working all day. They have been trapped in a selfish urgency bias or egocentric over their own needs and desires. Therefore, the importance of asking members when they are free and free time is very important.

For example, when are your friends empty? After office hour is it possible for us to have a short meeting? About an hour? Try commenting below. It is undeniable, if after working hours they have their respective activities. Whether it's taking care of children, cooking, playing and hanging out with friends.

Thus, the business is different when it is outside working hours. Setting the meeting time is very important to maintain the productivity of each other's work. Meeting time arrangements also prevent us from scheduling collisions or crashes with other schedules.

»» Meeting as a Form of Commitment

The essence of holding a meeting, both divisions or related agencies, is as a means of communication and evaluation of team performance. For those of you who are in work positions where there is a lot of pressure both in terms of targets and achievements, of course this meeting is used as an updated report submission and a middle ground for a problem.

They want to know what is today's target? Was the target achieved or not? Why is it not achieved and what is the cause? So sometimes this is where the importance of the meeting is held with the aim of knowing how far the progress has been? That's why meetings are always held regularly for the common good and goals can be easily achieved.

It is not uncommon that sometimes meeting participants feel bored and tired after a long day at work. They often lose motivation during meetings. But the meeting is always never to be missed. The solution to losing motivation during meetings is to remember that you are not alone. But there is a team that can embrace you. If you have trouble they can be invited to communicate and solve it together.

We can invite them to discuss how the middle way of solving and solutions to the problems that are being faced. Sit together looking for a solution together to make a joint decision. If you don't agree, that's okay, just say it and let's try to find another best solution.

»» Mere Urgency Effect

Having an online meeting schedule here and there is actually not something to be proud of. For example, we ourselves are still confused about time management. Have you ever procrastinated an office job and often said to finish this one first, but when it's finished, the X division meeting will come.

You can imagine when we are already busy with many well-arranged schedules that are important or even unimportant. Starting from working on client projects, meetings here and there, revisions, checkout of shopee groceries for fear that the vouchers will be forfeited on the twin dates. Realize that you are stuck in the Mere Urgency Effect zone.

According to Associate Professor of Marketing at Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, Meng Zhu said that people caught in the Mere Urgency Effect act out of a false sense of urgency and behave as if they are being chased by an urgent task. Priority is the main factor that plays the role of employees in this Mere Urgency Effect. They are more concerned with priorities when compared to what should be done first. The Mere Urgency Effect makes it difficult for you to classify which ones are really urgent, which activities can be done later. Poor time management seems to be a barrier for them to be able to be on time for their daily activities, including online meetings.

The way to overcome this Mere Urgency Effect is the Eisenhower Matrix quadrant. This quadrant can help you prioritize the things you do throughout the day. At least this matrix is ​​divided into 4 quadrants. The first quadrant indicates important and urgent, meaning that you do it immediately, don't delay. The second quadrant is important but not urgent, delegate. The third quadrant is not urgent but important, meaning decide when to take the action, when to do it, when is the deadline? Consider that.

Finally, the fourth quadrant is not urgent and not important, think keri aka later. Often they like to be turned around by this parable. Therefore, understand the situation first and then decide. Because the meeting is online, you also have to spend time or pause between meeting one another. Give a reminder and set the time of the week what day of the meeting.

»» Meeting Amnesia

There are so many meetings that everyone is shaking, what did the meeting discuss about last week? Have you ever had a moment like that? I'm pretty sure I've felt it. Too many meeting schedules make them the participants become suddenly amnesiac for the discussion of meetings that barrage every week.

Therefore, the importance of the deck or summary of the meeting discussion is very important to be shared and known to the meeting participants. Why? Because this is an online meeting, everyone should know. You can share it on the D day of the meeting or before the H-1 meeting so that the meeting participants can study it.

In addition, the meeting should at least be made more interactive between the forum leader and meeting participants. In other words, the atmosphere is warm and there is no gap or chat among the others. This is also done so that they focus on the discussion of the meeting so that no one diverts their eyes to other things.

The role of meeting minutes is also very important, especially meetings that are routine every month or weekly. This is intended so that meeting participants know what will be discussed in the future. Can be in the form of powerpoint slides or pdf files.

»» Pluralistic Ignorance

Have you ever felt compelled to agree to a decision during an online meeting? The reason is because you yourself and other co-workers agree that it feels like the decision taken by your boss is the right decision.

But actually because you are tired, frustrated and have a lot of online meeting schedules here and there, maybe you immediately agree to it and yes, yes, without needing to think long.

In fact, if we consider more closely, actually our colleagues and even you yourself have several different points of view on the final decision that has been unanimous to make. But when we think about it, for example, if we wanted to voice our opinion, the meeting would be long and never end.

In the end, with few people responding, while the others could only remain silent during the meeting, inevitably it had to be decided now because of the deadline or dateline.

From a psychological perspective, this phenomenon is known as pluralistic ignorance. Pluralistic ignorance is likened to a cognitive bias that distracts office meeting participants from agreeing to the decisions taken. This bias is implied because it seems as if they only listen to the end, spend hours sitting in front of the laptop, and other activities because they are carried out online and only a handful of participants respond and are active.

This bias results in coworkers making decisions that no one in plain sight really believes. But because they were tired, frustrated, and wanted to take a break, they followed the majority vote and immediately agreed to it.

To overcome the pluralistic ignorance bias in the case of this office meeting, there are at least four tips that can be used. First, as a forum leader, you should be more active and close to meeting participants. The forum leader can at least be more flexible to see the conditions and situation of the meeting. When everything is off the camera and off the microphone, the forum leader can invite forum participants to express their opinions through the chat column or Q&A if they have questions. Second, the forum leader can also adjust the time and duration of the meeting (eg meetings are held during after office hours through forum zoom meetings, etc., estimated duration of 1.5 hours) and systematic discussion so that it is not too tight and crowded so people don't get bored.

Third, the forum leader can also provide feedback or feedback to participants. Based on experience too, when a decision is about to knock on the hammer, don't ask questions, how are your friends so far with their decisions? but ask otherwise does anyone disagree with this decision? Please state your opinion. I open the opportunity for you to talk or type in the chat column. This is so that the forum participants feel like they are being cared for and will definitely reconsider their decision. Forum participants can also feel their presence and be involved in every decision.

Thus, they will no longer be surprised at the next meeting. Finally, make the minutes of the meeting so that all meeting members can read and know it in a separate file.

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