Welcome to your very first Workplaceless Microlesson!

🎒 Microlesson

🪞 Reflect

How much time do you spend in meetings per week? Of those meetings, how many are truly necessary and productive?

Knowledge workers are spending more and more time in meetings, many of which are ineffective and waste valuable time.

Converting some synchronous tasks to asynchronous processes can help alleviate virtual meeting overload.

💡 Concept

The Placeless Taxonomy is a classification system for communication goals, organized by how difficult they are to achieve asynchronously. It supports the adoption of async practices by helping match communication goals to the right channels.

Use the Placeless Taxonomy to do the following:

1. Audit calendars and identify meetings that can be converted to asynchronous processes.

2. Determine whether synchronous or asynchronous channels would be more effective to accomplish an objective.

Watch the following video for an overview of the levels:

As you eliminate meetings spent on the lower levels of the taxonomy, you will have more time to focus on deep work while reserving synchronous time for higher-order tasks such as innovating and connecting.

📄 Additional Resources

Download the Placeless Taxonomy Job Aid

Read the Placeless Taxonomy Blog Post

✅ Check In

🧠 Keep Learning

Enroll in our Async at Work eCourse to get step-by-step guidance on how to audit your calendar, convert tasks to async, and set boundaries for effective async-first communication.