7 Best Tools for Asynchronous Meetings

Async meetings are a game-changer in the world of collaboration. Unlike traditional meetings that require participants to be present at the same time, async meetings offer a more flexible and inclusive approach. In an async meeting, participants can contribute their thoughts, updates, and feedback at their convenience within a specified timeframe.

One of the key benefits of async meetings is the freedom it provides to individuals with busy schedules or those in different time zones. No longer do you need to juggle calendars and struggle to find a suitable meeting time. Async meetings allow team members to work on their own time, resulting in increased productivity and reduced scheduling conflicts.

Participants have the opportunity to dive deep into topics, conduct thorough research and craft thoughtful responses. This leads to more meaningful discussions, innovative ideas, and better decision-making. The asynchronous nature of these meetings also eliminates interruptions, allowing participants to focus on their work when they're most productive.

Furthermore, async meetings foster inclusivity by enabling every team member to contribute regardless of their location or availability. This opens up collaboration to a diverse range of perspectives and ensures that everyone's voice is heard. It promotes a sense of empowerment, engagement and ownership among team members, ultimately driving better outcomes.

The key to great asynchronous meetings is having the right tools. They work like your physical meeting space for an in person meeting. Having a meeting in a hallway is rarely a great experience.

Here is a list of the best tools for async meetings:

1. Workjoy Meetings Yes - it is our own tool but we built it because few tech companies have really dedicated themselves to providing a great async meeting experience. Either you have to hack the meeting experience using a general purpose text editor or you have narrow apps that do meetings and meetings only. So we built a meeting-tool into our workplace platform so every employee has it available at all times without switching somewhere else.
2. Notion Notion is the best non-native for async meetings. You can create a document with the outline and agenda but you will have to build things like deadline etc yourself. Notions built in chat ability enables you to have multiple agenda discussions at once. You can add action items but people have to go to the meeting to see them.
3. Google Docs Google docs is also a good alternative to Notion. It has a less intuitive UI but the same features.
4. Hugo, Docket, Hypercontext, Fellow All of these are dedicated meeting apps. They have a superior user experience compared to Notion or Google Docs. The drawback is that you get yet another app your team have to login to.