The consulting work I’m doing is reminding me (in larger software companies) how much “work” time is necessarily spent communicating and discussing – leaving little time for “actual work”.
A co-worker of mine at a BigCo in a former life had this on a poster in her cube1:
Meetings, the practical alternative to work.
There are definite time sucks for indy developers too, but they are in completely different areas.
- As mentioned previously. [back]
I have the Meetings Demotivator from Despair on my office wall: “Meetings: None of us is as dumb as all of us.”
I personally look at meetings as the stuff I attend so that other people can do real work. Of course, I’m also writing the agenda, keeping minutes, and driving action items for the one I have in 90 minutes. Look for that to be efficient. 😉