Show Notes:

• [0:00:50] Episode Summary | Intro
  • THE Jeremy Moore?
  • 2nd Vaccine Preparation & Anxieties
  • Last Episode Recap
    • Building and Developing Your Team
• [0:04:35] Getting Philosophical About Communication
  • Why Communication Isn’t ‘One-Size-Fits-All’
  • Dangers of Treating Distributed Communication Like You’re Collocated
    • How this is applicable to all areas of your life. 
    • “It started with pagers.”
  • Always On, “As Soon as Possible” Culture is a Problem
    • Activity is not to be confused with progress. 
    • If you’re always available, when can you ever hope to do ‘deep work’?
    • Anxiety induced by not being available, or forgetting your phone. 
• [0:14:08] Story Time: Communication Awareness
  • Developing Our Own Communication Tool
    • The justification, the goal, the whys and what-ifs.
  • Permissions to Interrupt
    • Is it healthy, or reasonable?
  • Not Having Little ‘Red Dot’ Notifications Waiting for You is Liberating
    • It takes time to reset your expectations and definition of work vs busy work. 
  • You’re More Than a Response Machine
    • Responding to notifications can feel productive, but it can kill creativity and progress by way of context switching. 
• [0:20:09] Maybe There’s a Better Way Than Always On
  • Training and Retraining Around Communication Expectations
    • We have been conditioned to get notifications and respond immediately.
    • The list of items that require immediate attention in your organization is MUCH smaller than you’re willing to admit. 
    • Retraining “I need to know right now” is the major hurdle. 
    • The vast majority of “need to know” items can be saved for when you explicitly choose to engage with your email, phone, etc. 
  • Be Willing to Shift Your Understanding of Urgent & Important
    • You’re probably thinking: “But what if we have an emergency?”
      • Here’s why it’s probably NOT an emergency. 
• [0:24:50] We Tend to “Solve” Management Problems with Software
  • The Bigger Problem: 
    • How and when you do, or do not, communicate with team members.
  • Don’t Be Selfish
  • Putting Out Little Fires Prevents You From Accomplishing the Meaningful
• [0:29:03] There Are Emergencies
  • But they’re so much fewer than you think they are. 
  • Document and define emergencies, which details on how and when to respond. 
    • Clarity on what is actually an emergency is very important, but use emergencies sparingly. 
  • Don’t let tools dictate how you run your business. 
    • Slack is a perfect example of this. 
      • Why James won’t log into Slack anymore. 
• [0:32:49] Closing Thoughts
  • “We all need more margin.” 
  • “Slower and more intentional is usually better.”
  • Next Time on AIB