Combat Video-Conference Fatigue

Many of you may have heard about - and be experiencing- "Zoom burnout" or video-conference fatigue...

Here’s a mix of some of my strategies and some suggestions from others that can help you stave off the mental and emotional exhaustion that comes from back-to-back video chats:

-Take breaks; book your calls with a break in between so you have a few minutes to organize agendas and notes, run to the bathroom, get a drink of water/coffee/whatever, and just decompress.

-Take a few moments before clicking “Join” to settle into your space (physical location AND the space between your ears). Take deep, purposeful breaths and notice whatever thoughts are running around in your mind. Pause and gently let go of anything that won't serve you. (This is also helpful in case you run into any technical issues ... being ready a few minutes early can make a big difference!) -Make time to say hello to and check in with the other people on the call — take a moment to acknowledge everyone that is in the Zoom Room with you (if the group is not too big) and see how they're doing.

-Resist the urge to multitask. I am a recovering multi-tasker and can tell you - it is always difficult to try and do several things at once (more on this later), but when you're trying to listen to and focus on a video conference, any distractions (email, texts, social media, pets, etc.) can be detrimental and -as evidenced by some of the funny videos floating around on the internet, skits from SNL, etc. - sometimes embarrassing.

-Utilize “speaker view.” In Zoom, you can choose either Speaker View or Gallery View... when using Speaker View, the one person who is speaking takes the screen whereas Gallery View shows all participants and can be pretty distracting. If you are the one making the presentation, ask others to mute themselves and pin your video.