Update: Help Desk and Slow-Start Meetings

Really, on normalizing and making my needs explicit

Earlier this year, I wrote about two changes I was making at work – setting up Help Desk, an administrative catchall time slot on my calendar, and scheduling Slow-Start Meetings, meetings that begin a few minutes after the hour or half-hour. Here’s an update on how each of those are going. 

Help Desk / admin time

Here were my original plans for an administrative help desk time:

1. Schedule this time on my calendar.

2. Host sessions in Gather.

3. Reschedule anything that doesn’t fit in the time block.

What didn’t work

This isn’t “available” time

This was a big learning for me. Hosting this time in Gather and making myself available meant I wasn’t actually able to use the time to do the administrative tasks from the day. In retrospect, I suppose this is obvious. However, it took a bit of experience for me to realize that “be available to people” and “complete small tasks” are fundamentally different types of problems that can’t be solved with one solution. So, I ditched the “public” aspect of the time and kept it solely for my own individual work.

What worked?

Overall these were remarkably energizing time slots, especially considering that I previously thought of the tasks as draining and frustrating. By grouping them together into “easy” time towards the end of my work day, I felt accomplished and on top of things. It also helped me focus and get more done during the rest of the day.

Backlog management

At some point I realized that I needed one easy place to create a backlog of these issues. I tried Front’s snooze, Gmail’s snooze, Slack’s reminders, Apple’s Quick Notes, ClickUp, and Linear… sometimes, all at once. I wanted something with virtually no friction – since many of these issues only take a minute or two to complete, it felt irrational to spend a minute creating a task for myself – so initially I tried creating the backlog “in situ,” in whatever app the request came in on. However, it turned out to be annoying to have to look in six places for my to-do list. 

Ultimately, I created a list in ClickUp just for me, just for these tasks. This allowed me to use Raycast’s ClickUp Quick Capture extension to create new backlog items in that list just by adding a task name. Since I could do this from any context on my computer in just a few keystrokes, this worked exceptionally well. Because I was only deferring tasks to later the same day, I didn’t need to add much additional information like links or context – it just had to be a jog for my memory and a list I could look at and prioritize. 

Using the ClickUp backlog list really unlocked the time for me. It allows me to look at everything that needs to be done, prioritize them if there are many, and schedule those that can wait or won’t fit.

Where I’ve landed

We overhauled the company meeting cadence in April, and as part of that, I eliminated the on-the-calendar time slots. However, I also generally blocked the later parts of each day to be free of meetings. I’ve continued to use the ClickUp list, and to loosely clear it at the end of each day… though if a day becomes particularly busy, I’ll sometimes wait until the next day to clear it. 

Compared to where I started, this is what I’ve now found to be important:

1. Schedule this time on my calendar. (Maybe)

2. Use Raycast to quickly capture tasks in ClickUp as they come in.

3. Host sessions in Gather.

4. Reschedule anything that doesn’t fit in the time block.

I may want to bring back the rigid time blocks on my calendar. I’m not sure yet if that’s important, or if my current, flexible approach will work just as well.

Slow-Start Meetings

Slow-Start Meetings are meetings that start a few minutes after the hour or half-hour.  

This remains the best thing ever, and I highly recommend trying it if you haven’t already. I still don’t have a strong opinion on whether an hour-long meeting should start 5 or 10 minutes past the hour… but both are way better than starting on the hour. 

I now have a Wednesday morning that usually has six “half hour” back-to-back meetings. Previously, this would have been an energetic and logistical disaster. I can’t go three hours without eating or drinking or moving. The only thing I changed was to start these meetings five minutes late, and Wednesday mornings are now energizing and easy. 

Outside of the occasional confusion (“it’s hard for me to remember that this meeting starts five minutes later”), I have gotten only positive feedback about the change. I often hear that people use the time to make tea, let the dog out, or just lie down on the couch. 

I still wish that Google and Calendly would enable this as a default setting, so if anyone reading has any clout with either, please let them know. 

Normalizing and making needs explicit

One theme here is normalizing my needs, and making them explicit. When I tried to pretend that I could fit small admin tasks in between things in my day, I felt scattered and frazzled. By acknowledging that they require time and attention, and designating space for them, I’m feeling more centered and even energized. When I tried to pretend I could go from meeting to meeting, I’d either end up drained and exhausted, or late for meetings. Explicitly scheduling space between things is a reminder for me to take a little break while also respecting the time and attention I’ve committed to other people. I suspect there are many other ways I can normalize and make my needs explicit, and I’m looking forward to exploring more.