How to Deal With Coworkers Who Lose Connection With You
Summary:
Conrad Case: How do you deal with co workers who lose connection when you shift from being a source of instant help to a chat? Anemal for back ground, i have built a reputation for being helpful and that has helped me get my name known more widely in my department. If i start cutting shallow work and taking longer to reply, i feel like people will be less inclined to seek my advice. Jonathan asks, how do you schedule around the inherent unpredictability of kids?…
Transcript:
Speaker 1
Undso
Speaker 2
we we basically just grow out a paper and all our thoughts just get stored in that one document.
Speaker 1
And that tends to work better than trying to have notes and other types of systems. The one exception is i do have paper notebooks, grid note books i use when i’m working on a particular piece of a proof away from a computer, like maybe i’m hicen or on a walk. But i transfer any
Speaker 2
good ideas out of that notebook. I transfer them into the master document, the
Speaker 1
access using overleaf. And when i want to tell my collaborators about recent progress, that’s whar i point them towards. Allright,
Speaker 2
thanks. Case, good question. Conrad asks, how do you deal with co workers who
Speaker 1
lose connection with you when you shift from being a source of instant help to a chat? Anemal for back ground, i have built a reputation for being helpful, and that has helped me get my name known more widely in my department. If i start cutting shallow work and taking longer to reply, i feel like people will be less inclined to seek my advice. So conrad, one thing you might try is office hours.
Speaker 2
You have
Speaker 1
set times publicly advertised, you are just straight up available for questions. And if this is a remote work set up, it can be a zoom meeting room. It’s a persistent link where it’s just always open during these times. And if you’re it a physical working scenario, it’s just your door is open, your phone is on. I mean, even you can even just say, look, i’m going to definitely be on slack during those times too, ho ever yo want to do it, but just people know it. Maybe it’s twice a week, maybe it’s for an hour each time. Nd, then you canst let people know, i kate, look, if you ever have any questions about anything, here’s my office hours. Always stoppd by. I’ll always be there. Love to talk about it. This
Speaker 2
is becoming a little bit more popular in
Speaker 1
the corporate world. Jason
Speaker 2
fried
Speaker 1
company, base camp, they do this especially with their experts, tho, people who have a domain of expertteeth within their company that get asked a lot of questions. They s office hours. It’s been popular for a long time in the venture capital community. I have a whole section about this in my new book coming out in march. I really get into the rise of office hours in these non aconomic environments. But here’s the thing you need to know about it. Conrad, it might feel like on paper, wait, if i go to office hours, i am actually restricting my availability. Whereas before, any one could chat me or emal me at any time, now i’m saying it’s an hour here, an hour there, and
Speaker 2
an hour over there, and
Speaker 1
it seems like much less time. But it will not feel that way to the people in your organization. You will actually seem more accessible because there’s clarity and there’s no friction. If
Speaker 2
i just know li these are the conrad
Speaker 1
is always available tuesday at twelve
Speaker 2
and wednesday at two and
Speaker 1
friday tin and it’s just part of my routine, and that there’s no social capital involved. There’s no friction, there’s no like, willy get back to me in my bothering him. I’m just in the habit of jumping in those office hours and asking you questions. I’m goig tofeel like you are more available and easier to get in touch with. The bar is lower for talking to i’m less self conscious about it. So it can seem paradoxical, but i’ve seen this effect play out, conrad,
Speaker 2
restricting your
Speaker 1
availability, but adding much more clarity about
Speaker 2
that availability can actually
Speaker 1
make you seem more available and more helpful than doing it in a more adhawk fashion.
Speaker 2
Jonathan asks, how
Speaker 1
do you schedule around the inherent unpredictability of kids? (Time 0:15:50)
Can You Have Too Much Autonomy?
Summary:
Be intentional, have daily dose of solitude, weekly mega dose, and you will be fine. Autonomy’s tough, right? If you don’t have any, you’re miserable. But if you have complete autonomy, people get miserable as well. Ph d students in particular, have a lot of trouble with the massive autonomy you have as a p h d student. You really got to know what you’re about and get after it....
Transcript:
Speaker 1
give it a little bit of thought and
Speaker 2
you’ll come up with a a much better mix of high quality leisure activities than if you just sort of rock and roll. Im bored whene put on that flix, and
Speaker 1
i wouldn’t really give it much more thought than that right now. So have your daily dose of idamen, weekly mega dose, and try to intentional. I give a little bit of thought to what you wat to do with your leisure timekei want to go for this walk. I like this audio book. It’s good for me. So im going to listen to that audio book on that walk, and then i’m going to come back and i’m going to whatever. Whittle
Speaker 2
in my woodshed. Being a little bit facetious here, but you get the idea. So bean, be intentional, have
Speaker 1
daily dose of solitude, weekly mega dose, and you will be fine.
Speaker 2
Jerry, askd can you have too much
Speaker 1
autonomy? Now he’s referencing my book, so good, they can’t ignore you. Where i call autonomy
Speaker 2
the dream job elixir. Now
Speaker 1
i say in that book, there’s few things that give people more sustainable satisfaction in their work than having say over what they work on, how they work on it and when they worko work on it. N the flip side, a lack of autonomy. So not having a lot of control about what you work on, or how you work on or when you work on it, that can make you quite miserable, regardless of the actual content of the work. So jerry’s asking, ok, can you have too much autonomy? And i think the answer is, oh, yes. Autonomy’s
Speaker 2
tough, right? If you don’t have any, you’re miserable.
Speaker 1
But if you have complete autonomy, people get miserable as well. You know, it’s like ka, you do whatever you want to,
Speaker 2
you know, work when you want to work
Speaker 1
on what you want to work on. No pressure, no structure. That that can be really difficult. Grad students have big trouble with this. Ph d students in particular, have a lot of trouble with the massive autonomy you have as a p h d student, especially once you’re done with your classes. And
Speaker 2
it pushes them to weird places where,
Speaker 1
having this complete autonomy, it makes a miserable an they try to create these whole dissertation hell cultures were somehow this idea of, like, all you have to do is work on this one paper for years is somehow a giant burden and terrible. That’s just because its is really tough to havefull autonomy. So jerry, yet, autonomy is really, really hard. So you have to couple increase autonomy
Speaker 2
with increase
Speaker 1
intentional structure to your work. You really got to know what you’re about and get after it. (Time 1:07:12)