By Rachelle Paquet
The 2020 pandemic very abruptly brought all our long-standing practices and procedures to a halt. Not a single service or business, in the public, private, or voluntary sectors, has been immune to its effects.
At the outset, services and businesses were classified as either essential or non-essential. If deemed essential, the service or business remained open. Conversely, if deemed non-essential, the service or business shutdown. Whether a service or business remained opened or shutdown did not matter, both categories felt the effects of having to completely revamp existing practices and procedures in order to survive and conform to physical distancing protocols mandated by the government.
As swiftly as the pandemic materialized sending everyone into isolation, so too did a solution.
While it had already been created for some time, the majority of the population had not heard of it. However, within a matter of weeks, Zoom became the universal solution, allowing most services and businesses to carry on from a distance. Zoom has been facilitating virtual doctor appointments, classrooms, business meetings, interviews, social gatherings, competitions, and of course mediations. It is remarkable how quickly everyone was able to migrate much of their daily routine to this new virtual reality. It undoubtedly kept many employed and facilitated access to much-needed services.
It has now been four months since adopting Zoom to carry on classes, meetings, and mediations and a new challenge has materialized which is being referred to as Zoom fatigue.
When I say Zoom fatigue, I am referring to feeling more exhausted at the end of your workday than you normally would have. There are many factors that are contributing to this fatigue, some of which are:
- Focusing more intently on the conversation due to loss of non-verbal cues;
- Being on camera and maintaining a constant gaze;
- Loss of focus due to online multitasking and/or family members in your space;
- Technological issues/delays adding stress; and
- All aspects of life, professional and personal, being in the same place.
Zoom has been the solution for so many services and businesses to continue operating from a distance, but it has not come without its own challenges. Given that Zoom is our current reality for the foreseeable future and having personally felt Zoom fatigue as of late, I felt compelled to write this piece to both acknowledge the challenges as well as compile and share some possible solutions, including the following:
- Limit the amount of time your camera is turned on during a meeting;
- Use other mediums when possible (such as emails, conference calls, etc.);
- Schedule breaks;
- Avoid multitasking during a Zoom meeting; and
- Plan your workspace in terms of mitigating technological issues as well as limiting personal distractions.
The above solutions may not solve the Zoom fatigue challenge entirely, but they will certainly help as we continue to navigate our new virtual reality that has allowed so many aspects of our lives to continue.