Question: I can’t work during meetings because of all the talking, but if I wear headphones everyone knows I’m not listening.

Answer:
Get a Cone of Silence.

Readers who don’t work in tech might wonder why I’m not just telling you to pay attention in meetings. A lot of us end up in meetings that last an hour, but we really only need to be there for 5 minutes. The catch is, nobody knows which 5 mins. So, we all bring our laptops and catch up on email, or use chat instead of getting on the phone.

It’s a a new twist on remote meetings. Usually, meeting remotely means videoconferencing while sitting at home in your skivvies. Suddenly someone noticed that no one was paying attention and the Agile folks came up with co-location, which means actually coming in to the office.

This didn’t solve the problem, though. Even with everyone physically present in the same room, their brains are still elsewhere…