Ask HN: Is life so regimented to schedule 15min meeting?

4 points by templarchamp 4 years ago | 4 comments

During meetups, I share my cell number hoping to have casual offline to explore mutual technical interests. But some of them prefer setting up meeting. I am all for meeting when the project engagement is full swing, but first few meeting?? Is life so clockwork to some? Or they have too many things going on that unless it is in schedule (calendly/zoom), the meeting would never happen? In that case, is it even worth meeting, given that the other person may have too many irons in the fire that I may not even be prioritized?

nickmyersdt 4 years ago |

I work in a way that requires me to focus for periods of time.

I find that booking a time that is mutually convenient (even for a short conversation) is preferable to possibly interrupting or being interrupted.

It means I can give my full attention to the exchange and make it a priority. Call me when I'm in the middle of something and you'll get less attention because my mind will still be on the task I was doing.

There's no part of my day that isn't busy (work, team, manager, personal).

Personally, for casual, non-priority conversations, I rather async mechanisms (messaging) be used first, and then if something develops that warrants a "face to face" conversation, we prioritise that time.

I think if someone has said "please book time with me" they have already made you a priority to talk to because they are giving you the most valuable resource a person has.

__d 4 years ago |

It depends, but yes.

In my experience, if you're busy, the only way to remain on top of things is to be quite ruthless with your time management. You have no time that is "free", so anything that you want to get done needs to be on the schedule.

If you're less busy, this behavior can seem rude or self-aggrandizing or whatever, but it's (probably) not. If someone offers you a 15 minute slot in their day, then they're probably extremely busy, and such an offer should be treated respectfully.

FWKevents 4 years ago | |

I agree. I'm still "pre-money" in my start-up, so not making money at the moment, but I always have an agenda of things I want to accomplish to move the ball forward. Under these conditions, if anything else gets done outside of my agenda, it's got to be scheduled. It does seem off-putting to some people. For instance, I volunteer at some community groups, and people I meet there can sometimes make the assumption that I'm being stand-offish when I whip out a schedule on my smartphone just to have a short chat or to do a volunteer task, especially since it seems to them like I'm "not working". I just have a lot of competing priorities and have learned that I must be true to my own goals first, or risk losing sight of those goals.

commentsgaloer2 4 years ago | |

Yeah, this is spot on. It also helps "block" that time slot so that other people can invite you to meetings or other activities taking this into account.