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For you who prefer listening to reading, this post is also available as an episode of the ""Done!"" podcast:

There are dis­trac­tions everywhere

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, all this does not hap­pen auto­mat­i­cal­ly. There are many things that might dis­tract you, whether it is a phys­i­cal or dig­i­tal gath­er­ing, which might make the entire meet­ing lose focus.

One par­tic­i­pant has a slow con­nec­tion and the rest of you, there­fore, have to try to guess what he or she is say­ing in all the qui­et breaks between the moments you can hear them. Some­one is ren­o­vat­ing the apart­ment next door from anoth­er par­tic­i­pant and when the mic is not mut­ed the loud noise from the ham­mer drill takes over and dis­tracts from what the par­tic­i­pant is try­ing to say. And on it goes.

Dis­tract­ed by yourself

Some of us also become dis­tract­ed by our­selves, not nec­es­sar­i­ly by our phys­i­cal selves, but by the image of our­selves look­ing back at us in the dig­i­tal meet­ing. As you will have well noticed by now, you not only see the oth­er par­tic­i­pants but also your own reflec­tion. It is prac­ti­cal to be able to ensure you look your best, but per­haps you are one of the peo­ple who also get very dis­tract­ed by see­ing your­self like this.

The peo­ple who like their own appear­ance will uncon­scious­ly watch them­selves just as much as they watch their fel­low par­tic­i­pants. The per­son who is not com­fort­able with how they look will be both­ered by being con­stant­ly remind­ed of their per­ceived short­com­ings and might try dif­fer­ent angles and posi­tions to find some­thing they feel more com­fort­able look­ing at.

Do this

If you notice that you become dis­tract­ed by your own ​“self-image”, hide it pri­or to the next dig­i­tal meet­ing. You would nev­er sit with a mir­ror in your hand dur­ing a phys­i­cal meet­ing — and con­stant­ly see­ing your­self in a dig­i­tal ver­sion is no bet­ter use to you.

If you attend meet­ings in Zoom, click the lit­tle “…”-but­ton at the top right cor­ner of your video and choose ​“Hide self-view”.

If you do dig­i­tal meet­ings in Teams, you go to the Me video menu, click on the ellip­sis menu “…”, and then select ​“Hide for me”.

Done!

More focus, less distraction

If you have pre­vi­ous­ly been dis­tract­ed by see­ing your­self in dig­i­tal meet­ings, you will no longer have to become unfo­cused (for this rea­son, at least). You main­tain your con­cen­tra­tion with greater ease and can pro­vide more val­ue to the meet­ing as a whole.

What’s your way?

What else dis­tracts you in dig­i­tal meet­ings and what have you done to pre­vent your­self from get­ting dis­tract­ed? If you have nifty solu­tions or tips, feel free to write to me and share!

(Strug­gling to keep every­one engaged and on track? Here’s a few tips on how to cre­ate good hybrid meet­ings!)