5 Easy Tips to Make Zoom Calls Far Less Dreadful.
Make Your Zoom Meetings More Effective and More Enjoyable.
Your work meetings are on Zoom, your classes are on Zoom, for some of you family game night might even be on Zoom at this point.
Zoom is a great platform, and boy did the sudden shift of the whole world work ever in the company’s favor over the last matter of months.
We all know that the platform can still be frustrating though. With dropped calls, lagging, screen recordings, muting microphones, and so on… It almost seems like Zoom offers too much flexibility with their settings.
The truth of the matter is that Zoom is a pretty well built out problem. All of the problems that we face with it are simply from a lack of knowledge and/or experience with the platform.
So what can we do to make our Zoom experiences more enjoyable?
1.) Wear Headphones.
The audio engineer part of me is constantly telling people that they should be wearing headphones when they are on Zoom. Especially if they are using Zoom to record anything that should sound somewhat professional.
The main reason you should be wearing headphones while on a Zoom call is to prevent feedback. Feedback happens when someone else’s audio is coming out of your speakers, and then going back through your microphone.
If you are wearing headphones, all of the audio you are getting will be going straight into your ears, and not back through your microphone for everybody else to hear the echo.
Plus, you’ll probably be able to hear everyone better with headphones in.
2.) Eliminate All Distractions.
Apparently this is too much to ask for for some people, but if you are joining a Zoom call, try to do so from a quiet room, that looks decent, and doesn’t have your cat roaming around in the background.
First of all, when you are in the middle of a meeting and the host’s dog starts barking or the baby starts crying, that’s really just annoying and awkward for everyone. (Yes, I understand that you’re not going to take your eyes off of your newborn for the sake of a meeting… You have to do what you have to do.)
On the flip side, you want to eliminate distractions for your own sake too, and not just everyone else’s.
If you take a call from a public place, while you’re driving, etc. You are not going to pay attention to what is going on in the meeting, and you’ll be wasting your own time along with everyone else’s.
So take five minutes before your meeting to set up in a quiet place, with no animals, no other people, and close all of your tabs before joining the meeting.
It goes a long way.
3.) Mute Your Microphone.
If you still haven’t figured this out, Zoom and a couple other platforms give you the option to unmute your microphone by holding down the spacebar on your computer. Use that setting.
Don’t be the guy that is in a meeting from your car with the window down and your microphone unmuted. If you have to be that guy, just don’t join the meeting, because the meeting isn’t useful for anyone when all that we can hear is “hwaohfouehguiaehgawehgouiaerhiughaeh” coming from the wind.
Muting yourself is going to allow whoever is speaking to be heard. Period.
4.) At Least Try with Your Lighting.
You don’t have to go out and buy studio lighting, or take an online film course to have at least okay lighting in your Zoom setup. All you really need is your own eyes and your own judgement.
It’s actually surprising to me how many people I’ve seen show up to Zoom meetings with themselves completely washed out on camera, or just in a dark room.
Believe it or not, your lighting will actually have a pretty big impact on the quality of the meeting. Poor lighting can be pretty distracting to other people, and for lack of a better way to put it, good lighting just makes you look better.
It almost goes back to the point of eliminating distractions. The guy in the meeting with bright white lighting can often draw attention away from what needs to be getting done.
5.) Show Up Ready for the Meeting.
The final piece of advice is to show up to your meetings prepared for whatever the purpose of that meeting is.
What this means is that you shouldn’t be showing up while you’re shoving your lunch down at the same time.
This is where “work from home” falls apart for most people, because they can’t separate work and home when they are doing it.
If you wouldn’t be eating a salad at 10:46 AM in the office, then don’t do it while you are working from home either.
If you wouldn’t be changing your baby’s diaper in the middle of a meeting at 12:42 PM at work… then don’t do it at home.
Just because you are physically at your house for these Zoom meetings doesn’t really make it appropriate to be doing “home” things while you have a meeting.
Pretend that you actually have to go somewhere for these meetings while you are preparing.
Get the kids taken care of, the dog, whatever it is, as if you are about to leave the house.
Then go into your separate room and be present in that meeting.
The Bottom Line.
This article is just covering some of the basics that you should be using when showing up to Zoom meetings.
Some of it may seem obvious, but trust me, some of you still aren’t following these unofficial rules.
So for everyone’s sake, take in the points listed above, and let us know of any more points that you would add over in the comments.
Following these guidelines will likely make your time on Zoom much more efficient and much more enjoyable.
Who wouldn’t want that?
