One on one meetings are one of the main ways for you as a manager to stay connected with your reports. They provide an opportunity for growth, problem-solving, and mentorship. However, it's common for them to feel more like a status update than a productive conversation.

Many managers blindly adopt the conventional way of running one on ones. The agenda usually looks like this: small talk about your weekend, status updates, and surface-level problems/blockers. Held once a week for 30-60 minutes.

Everything in the above agenda is important. However, it shouldn't be discussed in a one-on-one. One on one meetings can be introspective and dare we say it, transformative if you focus on the right things.

Here are some reasons why conventional one on ones may not be appropriate for your team:

Junior, new team members or those struggling may need more frequent, but shorter opportunities to connect.

Senior-level, independent team members may need to connect less often, but for longer to discuss nuanced, advanced topics.

Remote teams may flourish with frequent connections since spontaneous in-office conversations aren't happening.

Aside from understanding each person on your team's unique needs, these unconventional dos and don'ts can help enrich your one-on-ones and become a true mentor to your reports.

Do focus on being a mentor, don't get tactical

Managers, put on your 'mentor' or 'coach' hat. Your goal is to support and empower your report to keep moving in the right direction with their contributions to the team.

1:1 meetings are a great forum for topics like:

Career goals and aspirations, like working toward a promotion

Progress on implementing and actioning feedback that was received

Feedback on how the team is working together and progressing towards goals

Broader challenges the employee is facing with managing the workload, team dynamics, or complexity of projects

Exploring the direction of the company, decision-making, current objectives, and how the team member fits into the big picture

The purpose of a 1:1 meeting is not for you as a manager to get updates on work in flight. We suggest using other meetings, like stand-ups or project meetings, 

, or referencing your project/work management tool for that. 

Discussing project status in one on ones creates unnecessary information silos. As Karri Saarinen, CEO of Linear, called out in a recent 

, "Not only do 1:1s take a lot of time, they also don’t do a good for spreading information, or even having different angles of the discussion." Project updates should be surfaced in a group/team environment, so don’t spend time on this. You’ll have to repeat yourself later.

If you find tactical discussions are creeping in, redirect it to a discussion '

Do use themes, don't use a templated agenda

1:1 meetings shouldn't feel repetitive. Using conversation themes, instead of a templated checklist agenda, can help inspire deeper and less superficial conversations.

Here are some ideas for 1:1 topics and conversation themes for managers:

 E.g. What are you hoping to achieve in your role in the next two years? What are you currently working on that's helping you move toward that goal? Can we help you do more of that work?

: E.g. How do you think the team worked together on X project? Is there an opportunity for better communication? Did you notice any friction?

 E.g. Are there structures/processes in place slowing you or the team down? Are you noticing silos occurring between functions?

 E.g. Are you feeling supported by management and your team? Are you feeling energized at work? Is your work giving you satisfaction?

Add your theme to the agenda in advance, so your report has time to reflect. You should also let them choose topics. Will Larson, CTO at Carta, mentions some great talking points for reports to bring to their managers in his article 

"Things your manager should know about you:

That you’re making progress. (Specifically, that you’re not stuck.)

What you prefer to work on. (So they can staff you properly.)

How busy you are. (So they know if you can take on an opportunity that comes up.)

What your professional goals and growth areas are.

Where you are between bored and challenged.

How you believe you’re being measured. (A rubric, company values, some KPIs, etc.)"

While we suggest you avoid talking tactically about projects, if something does need to be discussed privately, address it after covering your theme.

Do show up on time, don't be the one to cancel

Have you ever had your manager repeatedly reschedule or cancel your 1:1s? It doesn't make you feel very prioritized. On some teams, 1:1 meetings are one of the only chances reports have to discuss vulnerable topics. Cancelling or rescheduling might signal to your report that everything and anything else is more important than them. This is not a great way to create a trusting and open relationship.

Be punctual with your 1:1s. Show up right on time and give your full focus for the time allotted. Don't send Slack messages or emails on the side. Never be the one to completely cancel a 1:1. Your report should be the only one to initiate cancelling if they need time back.

If you do have a scheduling conflict, make sure you're rescheduling as close as possible to the original time. Avoid rescheduling at the last minute, too. It's not respectful of anyone's time and last-minute cancellations can waste precious focus time.

As a leader, you should set a boundary with your team and colleagues that 1:1 meetings in your calendar should not be booked over and that they take precedence over other meetings. This will help set the tone across the organization as well.

Do share what you're working through as a leader, don't shy away from vulnerability

A great way to set the tone for open and transparent 1:1 meetings is to open the curtain on what you're working through as a leader. Being vulnerable and transparent can build trust and prepare your reports for what senior-level roles like yours are like.

Some ideas of what you can share with your reports (where appropriate):

Why and how you reprioritized work that was on your plate

A challenge you're struggling with in managing a current project

A piece of feedback you received and how you're implementing it

I once had a manager who was open with me about what he hoped to work towards and achieve in the next level of his career. He wanted to move from VP to C-Suite into a position that didn't exist yet. He shared some of what he was doing to make that happen. He also mentioned new responsibilities I'd likely see him taking on to work towards that goal.

This conversation was powerful for two reasons. I saw my boss as a human who has their own dreams and goals (and insecurities). And, I gained insight into how successful leaders forge a path ahead that I could emulate in my career.

 also underlined the importance of managers being vulnerable during a recent 

, noting it's helpful for managers to be transparent about how they're prioritizing and spending their time.

Remember 1:1s are for you to provide mentorship, so sharing is a powerful tool.

Do be an active listener, don't speak the whole time

Being an active listener is an important part of being a good manager, but it’s especially important during 1:1s. You can learn a lot about the inner workings of your team and how people are feeling by listening closely.

Don't assume you know all the answers. Allowing your reports to share their opinion without sharing your perspective first will help you get unbiased feedback. It can help you spot potential issues early, like cultural challenges, blockers, resourcing issues, etc.

It’s even more important to ask the right questions, so you don’t have blind spots. If they briefly touch on something you think might have more meaning behind it, ask questions like "Can you tell me more about that?" or "Is there a specific example that comes to mind?"

The more delicately you treat conversations like this, the more your team will trust you and open up. Always let them know how you plan to action feedback. Some statements you can use are:

"Thank you for sharing this with me. I'm going to think about what this means, and we can discuss it further in our next one on one"

"This is important feedback. Would you like me to share it with [x person or x team]? I can share it anonymously if you're more comfortable."

"How can I support you in addressing this challenge?"

Powerful one to one meetings focus on supporting your team on their career journey. Keep the focus on being a mentor, rather than tactical triage, and don't be afraid to go deep.

Dos and don'ts of one on one meetings for managers

Jess Cooper

Don't let conventions dictate how you run one-on-one meetings as a manager. 

There’s a lot of non-technical work that goes into eng teams delivering projects successfully. This work is called Glue Work and your team can’t function without it. Like the name suggests, Glue Work is the ‘glue’ that holds the team together and bridges the gap between technical tasks.


’ talk, Tanya Reilly provides some examples of Glue Work on dev teams, “Like noticing when other people in the team are blocked and helping them out. Or reviewing design documents and noticing what's being handwaved or what's inconsistent. Or onboarding the new people and making them productive faster. Or improving processes to make customers happy.”


Tanya also points out that Glue Work is similar to technical leadership, but often leaders aren’t the only ones performing these tasks. It’s common for the majority of Glue Work to settle on a technical team member who is naturally proactive with organization or operations tasks, recognizes gaps and is comfortable stepping up to fill them.


When Glue Work is visible and shared equally across your team, it can help with reducing information silos, mitigating risk, improving gender equality, and enhancing your team’s overall productivity. In this article, we’ll share tactics for how to harness the power of Glue Work on your team and use it for good.

While it might not always be glamorous, there’s no way around Glue Work being done on your team. Most eng teams’ 

 with metrics like lines of code shipped or story points completed. But shipping code isn’t the only way to contribute to moving these metrics in a positive direction. Glue Work makes the entire operation run smoothly. Without it getting done, it’s going to feel difficult to make progress.

Reward Glue Work or it won’t be done (fairly)

As we mentioned previously, Glue Work can tend to fall on one person. It happens sneakily over time. A new person (likely a woman, but we’ll talk more about that later) joins a team.


They are a natural communicator and organizer. They’re likely junior, but have senior-level people and management skills.


They see an opportunity for process improvements, so they jump in and suggest changes to demonstrate their value. It makes the team better.


They receive good feedback, so they chime in on more ways to help the team run better.


Before you know it, people have caught on that they’re good at this Glue Work stuff…


And now their manager and peers are asking for help. Eventually, they’re doing the bulk of the Glue Work.


There are two main reasons why Glue Work being done by a single individual is not a good idea.

When not shared, Glue Work can steal too much focus

Glue Work is like an iceberg. On the surface, it might not look like there’s much that needs to be done. But when you look underneath, there’s more behind-the-scenes work than you think.


When a technical person ends up with the sole responsibility of Glue Work, it can slow their career progression. Glue Work could end up eating away at their time, making it harder for them to efficiently complete major projects that are required for promotion. This isn’t fair.

It’s never a good idea to have one person on your team be the only one who knows how to do something. If that person gets sick or gets busy, someone needs to have adequate knowledge to fill in.


For example, Glue Work skills like reviewing and providing feedback are important. If only one person is doing this, feedback will become unilateral. The entire team should take turns providing feedback and direction. To practice this skill, but to also bring new perspectives to the team.

An important note on Glue Work and gender inequality in the workplace

Women tend to take on (or are given) more invisible work. Both 

. If Glue Work isn’t celebrated or mandated in a team, people will have to volunteer to do it. But “volunteering” doesn’t always mean an eager hand raise. Sometimes it’s observing that an important task isn’t getting done, and no one else is stepping up to do it. Is that fair?


There’s an interesting phenomenon with volunteering in the workplace. In the HBR article, 

Why Women Volunteer for Tasks That Don’t Lead to Promotions

If there’s work that doesn’t count towards a promotion to be done, 

women volunteer to do it 48% more often than men

Men tend to wait to volunteer, because they know a woman will volunteer instead.

When no women are present, men will volunteer.

Managers ask their female employees to help with non-promotable work 44% more than men.

Those aren’t easy facts to read, but we need to be honest with ourselves about these patterns in the workplace. It’s likely you’ve experienced this, but you may not have noticed. It’s probably fair to assume that female software engineers are taking on an 

Leadership challenge: Think about the people on your team who volunteer for Glue Work the most often. Who are they? How can you make it more fair?

To ensure fairness and equity for all in the workplace and that Glue Work is shared across team members, it needs to be encouraged and rewarded at all levels. This will require both a cultural and operational shift by the leaders in your organization. Let’s discuss tactics for helping create change in your organization.

Glue Work can often be invisible–even if it’s taken hours of someone’s week. A cultural shift towards putting importance on Glue Work is making sure it’s both visible and celebrated. When summarizing wins of a project, it’s important to include Glue Work. It’s not an afterthought. It’s the glue, after all.


This could include call outs in Slack, sprint reviews, retros, etc.

Make it clear Glue Work is a shared responsibility and no one is above it

Glue Work shouldn’t be assigned on a ‘volunteer’ basis. Because Glue Work is core to an engineering team’s ability to thrive, it should be considered up front.


When planning a sprint or a project, make sure to discuss Glue Work, what type of tasks need to be completed and approximately how much effort they will take. Giving Glue Work facetime during meetings will help communicate it’s a core responsibility.

Then, assign the Glue Work tasks evenly across the team. If someone says they are too busy for Glue Work, that’s a sign that they’re too busy in general and priorities need to be reevaluated. 


Clearly communicate to the team that they will be held accountable for Glue Work in the same way they would be for code contributions. Make sure to follow through. Glue Work should not be passed off to someone else–intentionally or unintentionally–without a larger discussion about priorities.


It’s helpful to switch up who takes on what Glue Work tasks each sprint/project for knowledge sharing. This way, the entire team gets practice working on skills like developing standards and documentation, providing review, training new employees, etc.

Include Glue Work when evaluating performance

Glue Work can be hard to quantify, which makes it more challenging during evaluations/reviews. A good way to approach quantifying Glue Work is to consider the business impact. If someone on your team helped support a project with Glue Work, what was the impact of that? That’s how you quantify it.


Here’s an example. A new customer is onboarding and needs a complicated integration that’s not working correctly. Normally it would be handled through Customer Success, but in this case, an engineer needs to be on the call to understand what’s happening. One of your engineers steps up and works with the customer directly. They provide them status updates, follow up by email, and eventually resolve the issue. The customer is happy and was impressed by the team’s dedication to helping them. As a result, this reduced the potential for churn and helped the company hit its MRR goals. That’s how you quantify the impact of Glue Work.

To keep track of this, it’s always a good idea to encourage your team to keep 

. Brag sheets are a great way to bring light to invisible work. Asking your team to keep track of their key achievements (not just code!) throughout the quarter will help you evaluate their contribution to Glue Work.


Did your contribution help retain customers or expand accounts?

Did it reduce the time it takes to resolve a customer bug ticket?

Did it make it easier for our team to meet its goals? How?

Did it help move the needle on key company OKRs?

In short, Glue Work is necessary and often undervalued. Intentionally celebrating and distributing Glue Work on your team can help with reducing information silos, mitigating risk, improving gender equality, and improving your team’s overall productivity.

Celebrating Glue Work on your team

It’s time for Glue Work to get the attention it deserves

One of our core values at Stashpad is simplicity. Our goal is to create a collaborative docs experience that gets out of the way and lets you focus on writing. Because of this, we are intentional about which features we ship and which we leave out.

Spell check was one of our most requested features. And we get why. We’ve all gotten used to having spell check pick up on our typos and cover for us on words we can’t seem to spell correctly.

But we know some folks prefer more advanced auto-complete features. For now, we think the best way to benefit from both Stashpad and this level of support is with an app like 

. We want to keep Stashpad simple and Grammarly does a great job, why reinvent the wheel?

And an added bonus… Both Grammarly and Stashpad Docs offer free versions. So you use a complete collaborative docs experience with advanced spell check for free!

How to download the Grammarly browser extension to use with Stashpad Docs in Web

If you like to use Stashpad Docs in your web browser, then you’ll need the Grammarly browser extension. Here’s how to download it:

Navigate to the Chrome store and search for ‘

Install the extension by clicking ‘Add to Chrome’

You’re all set! Make sure you’re signed up for a Grammarly account. You’ll start seeing Grammarly’s suggestions in your Stashpad Docs.

Not using Chrome? Grammarly lists how to download its extension for other browsers in 

Best practices for using Grammarly spell check with Stashpad Docs

Spell check is helpful for polishing your work before sharing it, but it can actually be harmful if it’s distracting you as you write. Here are three key tips for using spell check and avoiding distractions:

Disable spell check when you’re in ‘brain dumping’ mode. When you’re focused on getting your thoughts out on the page, it’s not the right time to be worried about typos. Let your ideas flow. When you’re ready to review, turn spell check back on.

In general, it’s best to disable spell check features when you don’t need them to help reduce visual clutter. A clean, minimal interface can help foster your creativity.

Not every suggestion is a good one. While Grammarly is a powerful tool, grammar or clarity suggestions can lack nuance and may not always be the right choice. Make sure you review each suggestion without blindly accepting.

Try Stashpad Docs and Grammarly out today. Just type

in your browser after downloading Grammarly to get started.

How to Use Grammarly with Stashpad for Spell Check

Download Grammarly to add advanced spell check to your Stashpad Docs experience.

Too much context-switching doesn't just make you less productive, it also makes work a lot less fun.  That's why last week I was really excited to join 

How Does Context Switching Impact Team Productivity

 panel to talk about how we can mitigate context-switching.

I love participating in panels because I always learn something new from the other panelists. I wanted to share my key takeaways in case you didn't get to tune in.

If you're interested, you can also see the 

Most of us have a basic understanding of context switching. It's when you switch your focus between tasks. But, there are actually two steps when you context switch:

: when you make the decision to switch from one task to another. 

: when you adopt the ‘rules’ for your new task. 

For example, closing your code editor, opening up a video app, getting your notes ready, and fixing your hair.

Both add to the mental load of context switching. We’ll explore a strategy for mitigating one of these steps later.

Signals your team might have a context switching problem

All teams have some amount of context switching. These are a few of the signals we discussed that could indicate context switching is a real problem on your team.

Your team is working on a lot of unscheduled, out-of-scope work. Your velocity is decreasing and the team is struggling to make it through committed work.

Your team does their "real work" after work hours

The phrases, “I haven’t gotten any work done yet today” or "I'll do my real work later this evening" is an indicator that your team is busy, but with the wrong things. They may be losing momentum managing distractions and impromptu interruptions. Their priorities may be unclear.
You may notice they are only able to make headway on code changes late at night after working hours.

People like to feel accomplished and have an impact. Context switching can steal the joy and satisfaction of completing a task.

Listen to your team! Some folks may come right out and say “I’m switching between tasks too much and it’s making it hard to have deep focus time”. But others may not be as obvious. Watch out for statements like:

“I have too many different things on my plate right now” or,
“I can’t find time to get to xyz”

Reduce context-switching at the team level 

There are two levels you can target context switching at: the team/cultural level or the individual level. In this section, I’ll talk about the most interesting insights for team-level improvements.

 pointed out is that senior ICs and managers need to lead by example and set the norms for context switching. More junior team members might not feel comfortable speaking up. If they see senior-level team members working a certain way, they may feel pressured to emulate it. Creating boundaries at work with things like your response time, when you take meetings, etc. and communicating those to your team will help empower them to set similar structures and stick to them.

 mentioned that it's important to be vulnerable as a manager and give your team insight into how you’re spending your time. Some ideas on what to share could include:

What your current workload is and what you’re balancing

How you’re prioritizing what you’re working on

This transparency creates a safe environment for the team to question if they’re spending time on the right things. It’s better to do a few things really well than have a ton of things on your plate and not feel good about any of them. Chris also underlined the importance of building rapport with your direct reports so they feel comfortable having open and honest conversations about why they didn’t complete a task on time and what got in the way of it.

On the panel I shared that knowledge silos can be a major driver of context switching. Why? If you’re the only one who knows how to do something, it’s likely you’ll be pulled in to help fix it when something goes wrong. This means that the most senior person on the team is essentially always on-call, and never able to truly focus on other work.

Here are some ideas for how to encourage better knowledge sharing:

After each incident, have the person who fixed it explain what happened.

 where they simulate different things being broken and present past scenarios and other team members try to debug.

When code changes are needed in sensitive codebase areas, have someone else write the code change. It'll take them longer than the person who already has the expertise, but they'll understand the code better than from just doing a review.

 pointed out that it’s important to reflect on what you reward culturally and try to skew it towards favoring knowledge sharing. Look at what it takes to get promoted within your organization. If that doesn’t include knowledge sharing, a shift is needed. One example that several of us have seen is that getting promoted requires completing a large project on your own. There's no knoweldge sharing in that - just deep focus time without interruptions. So you may actually be incentivized to avoid people asking you questions.

Expect to context switch more when you’re on-call

 put this. You’ll context switch more when you’re on-call, so lower the expectations for what you'll accomplish that day. If on-call is your top priority, anything else you do is a bonus. This lets the rest of your team focus on what they're doing. Also recognize that b It enables the rest of your team to focus and shields them from the burden of context switching.

It also means you can respond to customer needs and outages faster. You’ll feel less scattered and frustrated if you set the expectations that on-call is your #1 thing for the day.

Reduce context-switching at the individual level 

Group similar tasks for less jarring context switches

As we discussed in the beginning, ‘rule activation’ is the second step in context switching. This is when you adopt the ‘rules’ of the new task.

If you have no choice but to switch between tasks, try to group tasks with the most similar rules. For example, 

 suggested scheduling all your meetings together within a certain time frame can make it easier to go from one to the next since the rules are essentially the same.

Control your environment, especially at home

Distractions get the best of all of us, especially when working from home. 

 pointed out you may have a load of laundry going or your cat walking over your keyboard and demanding attention, whatever it may be. At home, there’s more responsibility to keep focus because there’s so many things to steal your focus.

Accept that you cannot completely eliminate context switching

Despite your best efforts at the team and individual level, we all have to accept that there is some amount of context switching that we’ll need to tackle. But there are strategies to reduce the impact of context switching.
Writing notes before switching tasks helps you have better closure on that task so that you can be more present for the next task. There's a concept called "

" where your thoughts from your previous task pollute your focus on the current task. This is when you start to feel scattered and overwhelmed from context-switching.

To mitigate this, you can jot down a quick 

 before switching tasks. Write down what you did and what's next. This closes the loop on that task for now so you can focus on the next one.

None of us are perfect, but identifying ways you can set a better example and limit distractions can help you and your whole team become more productive and focused.

How Does Context Switching Impact Team Productivity? 

Cara Marin

My learnings from the context-switching panel in partnership with Leaddev and Incident.io

Meetings are where important work happens. Coming together with your colleagues can be a great opportunity for decision making and collaboration. However, productive meetings don’t just happen by accident. It requires preparation and groundwork.

One of the best tools at your disposal for getting the most out of meetings is the meeting agenda. But if agendas are so powerful, why are they not the standard in companies? In Atlassian’s 

, 62% of respondents are attending meetings that don’t include a goal in the invite. How can you foster collaboration if you don’t know what you’re collectively working towards?

In this article, we’ll walk through how to create powerful agendas for your meetings to maximize productivity and collaboration.

Why creating an agenda for meetings is important

Showing up for a meeting and having no idea what it’s for can be frustrating. Meeting agendas are a tool for creating alignment and visibility, so everyone knows what to expect and can make use of the scheduled time.


Agendas don’t have to be a time-consuming formal process, either. They can be a light-weight way to create accountability and structure around meetings. Using a 

79% of people said agendas lead to more productive meetings

. Time and attention are two of our most precious resources at work. Most people don’t have enough to go around. It’s usually not within our control to avoid meetings, but what is within our control is making those meetings impactful.

Gain alignment and help attendees prepare

Reduce time spent in meetings by zeroing in on key topics

Ensure everyone’s points are addressed and voice is heard

Keep accurate notes on what was discussed for next-steps

Blog

Notes from the Stashpad team and community.

Dos and don'ts of one on one meetings for managers

Celebrating Glue Work on your team

How to Use Grammarly with Stashpad for Spell Check

How Does Context Switching Impact Team Productivity?

How to Create a Meeting Agenda for Better Productivity

Introducing the Obsidian Integration with Stashpad

Need Apple Notes Markdown Support?

Our new Script Kit Scripts for Stashpad

How to Stay Organized with Back-to-Back Meetings

A React Developer's Guide to Learning SolidJS

Make your Work
Note-Worthy

Dos and don'ts of one on one meetings for managers

Celebrating Glue Work on your team

How to Use Grammarly with Stashpad for Spell Check

How Does Context Switching Impact Team Productivity?

How to Create a Meeting Agenda for Better Productivity

Introducing the Obsidian Integration with Stashpad

Need Apple Notes Markdown Support?

Our new Script Kit Scripts for Stashpad

How to Stay Organized with Back-to-Back Meetings

A React Developer's Guide to Learning SolidJS

Make your Work Note-Worthy

Make your Work
Note-Worthy