Why Should We Ban Laptops During Meetings?

A laptop decreases meeting activities and might be a means of distraction, but it’s also the most useful device for taking notes during any meeting.

The author of Trello blog claims that digital tools designed to improve productivity can actually hinder it when they get between us and our point of focus.

Here’re some interesting moments from one of the posts:

What to do?

Try to use psychology secrets. Limiting human behavior and establishing processes mitigate the impulse to seek out an additional source of stimulation. These steps should be helpful:

• Make a rule to put laptops away during in-person meetings. Use a stack of paper pads and pens instead.
• Close all apps that might serve as a distraction if a laptop is necessary (for example, for remote team meetings)
• Be accountable. People do like to be distracted. For in-person meetings, ask team members to put mobile devices into a basket before the meeting gets started.

What benefits will you get?

It may seem illogical to ban a tool that is supposed to make working easier, but the evidence of its misuse is enough to reconsider an option.

Here’s what you’ll get by leaving laptops at your workspaces:

• Increased empathy. It’s about more eye contact and body language cues and high understanding of each person’s point of view.
• Time. When each participant is engaged, the energy in the meeting will be higher and the conversations may be shorter. Think about saving time!
• Writing notes by hand helps to retain more of the information than if we type them out.

Will you take your laptop with you at the next meeting?