Meetings are broken.

The presumed requirement to meet at the same time and, often, the same place is killing our productivity, unnecessarily costing our businesses money, and wreaking havoc on our enjoyment and happiness at work and home. Whether it’s too much time spent in them, a lack of clarity and decisions offered by them, Zoom fatigue, or some other productivity-killing impact, the meeting as we know it needs to go.

That’s why I’m building Asynchly, the world’s first Asynchronous Meeting Platform.

It’s time we found a better way to meet.

Many smart companies have attempted to convert their synchronous meetings to asynchronous. Unfortunately, they’ve been forced to hack together disparate systems in order to achieve the impact they desire.

Others have opted for asynchronous video messaging or have bent their project management platform beyond its primary use to find a solution. While these routes can help with lessening the reliance on time, the gap is clear: the world needs a way to effectively transition to asynchronous meetings and meet asynchronously.

My vision is that Asynchly’s powerful asynchronous meeting platform is the solution.

You might be asking yourself a few things about asynchronous meetings. Let me explain.

What is an asynchronous meeting?

An asynchronous meeting is any type of meeting that is executed independent of time. Where a synchronous meeting involves participants gathering either in person or via video or phone conference at the same time, an asynchronous meeting involves all contributors documenting their deliverables in a central location according to their own schedules and not at the same time.

What is an asynchronous meeting platform?

An asynchronous meeting platform is a digital tool where asynchronous meetings take place. Asynchronous meeting platforms like Asynchly will systemize the meeting to enable focused collaboration between meeting contributors. An asynchronous meeting platform makes it easy to conduct effective and efficient asynchronous meetings by guiding meeting owners through a user-friendly asynchronous meeting creation process. Meeting contributors are then prompted, according to the meeting’s objective and asynchronous run-times, to complete their individual deliverables. These deliverables achieve the objective set by the meeting owner.

The new category of asynchronous meeting platforms is the logical next step in the growing trend of asynchronous work. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic (but certainly exacerbated by it), companies learned to love asynchronous work. This came in the form of asynchronous communication and collaboration leveraging tools like Trello, Asana, Monday, Basecamp, Slack, Twist, or many of the other great project management and communication platforms.

But those types of platforms aren’t the answer to the problems we all face with our meetings. Our challenges with the modern-day meeting require a radical change and a platform to execute that change.

As for those challenges? I’ll be digging into those in upcoming posts here on Medium and elsewhere, like our newsletter, and the resources available on the Asynchly website, but consider for a moment these telling data points:

• The average executive spends 23 hours per week in meetings. That’s more than half the work week.
• A large majority of people said poorly organized meetings led to loss of focus on projects, confusion, and not enough time for people to get to the rest of their work.
• 57 percent of professionals believe improperly attended meetings are the biggest cost to their company.
• If that doesn’t shock you, how about the things people admit to doing during meetings they probably shouldn’t be in:
• 91% have daydreamed
• 39% have slept (!)
• 73% have worked on other things (while this is good on the surface, consider the quality of work compared to when these workers could have focused on the work rather than “multitask.”)
• Nearly half of all U.S. employees don’t know what is expected of them while at work.
• 67 percent of professionals say they’re not able to make the impact they want at work because they spend too much time in meetings or on calls.
• A lack of decision making and follow up were two of the main reasons meetings didn’t aide in productivity.
• 36 percent of knowledge workers felt attending meetings diminished their productivity and the quality of their work.

Asynchly will address each and everyone of those data points by providing a powerful asynchronous meeting platform to businesses and teams seeking enhanced productivity and workers desiring more focus and better use of their time.

What will Asynchly offer?

The idea for Asynchly was born out of my desire to spend less time in unproductive meetings. But, the time spent in all those meetings taught me so much about them — the good, the bad, and the ugly. I learned that most productive meetings have similar elements and cadences. I learned that meetings typically become unproductive because of a deviation from this productive system.

My goal with Asynchly is to systemize the productive elements of a meeting and remove the need to meet in real time. Asynchly will remove our reliance on meeting synchronously — whether in-person or via phone or video — by offering an organized, efficient, and enjoyable way to meet asynchronously.

A meeting run on the Asynchly asynchronous meeting platform will consist of six key principles:

1. Clear & concise objectives: Any good meeting begins with everyone on the same page. Asynchly will help meeting owners set clear objectives that keep everyone rowing in the same boat and determine just how complete the meeting is. When everyone is aligned on their purpose, they remain focused on the goal and are able to point their efforts and skills in the right direction. Asynchly’s powerful asynchronous meeting platform will help organizers nail their objective to help kick off a super-productive meeting.
2. Contributors, not attendees: Most meetings tend to have too many people involved. Asynchly will trade attendees for contributors, ensuring only those who have something to contribute are involved. Asynchly’s powerful asynchronous meeting platform will ensure you’ve got the right people involved, which is among the most important steps of moving a meeting from dreadful to productive.
3. Easy to understand deliverables: With the right contributors, it’s easy to assign deliverables that align to the meeting’s objective and the expectations of everyone involved. Asynchly will make it easy for meeting owners to assign deliverables that align to the meeting’s goal and contributors understand, accept, and complete.
4. Firm but fair run times: The best thing about an asynchronous meeting is that there’s no need to meet at the same time. Asynchronous meetings can run 10 minutes or two weeks — independent of timezone. Asynchly’s powerful asynchronous meeting platform will remove time as a barrier and offer meeting owners the flexibility of run dates to accommodate their asynchronous meetings. If the meeting’s objective is a daily check-in, it only needs a 10-minute run time. If the objective is more involved and requires contributions from a number of team members, a lengthier run date can be set. And, regardless of run-time, the meeting is held asynchronously, giving you and your team the freedom to focus.
5. Organized & on-demand communication: Most meetings tend to have a lot of talk but no clarity. Asynchly will record every dialog, detail, and decision so no one is left asking, “wait, what are we doing again?” Asynchly will make it easy to search for and refer back to decisions, notes, and action-items so you and your team can be clear on what happened and what’s next.
6. Time to focus on your priorities: We’re all spending wayyyyy too much time in meetings. And, that is preventing us from doing a good job with our work. Asynchly and its asynchronous meeting platform will make work the focus of your day by redefining what it means to meet. Without being stuck in meetings all week, you’re free to crush your work and focus on what’s important to you. What could be better than literally getting time back?

How to get involved in the asynchronous meeting platform movement

We’re currently in the process of building Asynchly and I’m so excited to share it soon with the world. As soon as the product is ready, we’ll be running a private beta program before releasing to the world.

Are you interested in joining our early access list, participating in our beta program, joining our community, or simply learning more about our asynchronous meeting platform? We’d love to hear from you! Connect through any or all of the following ways:

• Our website: www.asynch.ly/
• Blog & Resources: www.asynch.ly/blog
• Beta program application
• Apply for early access
• The Asynchly newsletter full of asynchronous meeting and asynchronous meeting platform resources, news, and best-practices
• My personal newsletter on building a startup as a full-time working husband & father
• Asynchronous Meetings Facebook group
• Asynchly on Instagram
• Asynchly on Facebook
• Connect directly with me!

As you can see, I’m passionate about finding a better way to meet. I couldn’t be more excited to serve as a driving force behind the adoption of asynchronous meeting platforms or to bring Asynchly to the world.

I believe so strongly that organizations, businesses, and teams of all shapes and sizes can see better impact by rethinking their reliance on synchronous meetings. I know in my heart that employees could be so much more productive, engaged, and happy without so many unproductive meetings. These beliefs are what led to the creation of Asynchly.