The short answer
Write things down, put them where they can be searched, and agree that a documented assumption beats a day of waiting. Teams that do this work well across distance. Teams that rely on conversation do not, and they blame the distance.
None of this requires more meetings. Most of it reduces them.
Default to writing
A decision made in a conversation exists only for the people who were there. The same decision written in a channel is available to everyone, including the person who joins in three months.
- Decisions, with the reasoning, not just the outcome
- Context for a piece of work, before it starts
- Anything that would otherwise be explained twice
- The answer to a question somebody is likely to ask again
The test is whether someone could pick up the work tomorrow from what is written. If they would need a conversation first, the writing is incomplete.
Channels rather than direct messages
| Direct message | Shared channel |
|---|---|
| Invisible to everyone else | Searchable later |
| Repeats when someone else asks | Answered once |
| Creates a single point of knowledge | Spreads context |
| Fine for personal matters | Better for work |
Moving work conversations out of direct messages is a small change with a large effect on how much repeats.
Make it safe to assume
The most expensive pattern in distributed work is someone stopping because a question cannot be answered until tomorrow. Say explicitly that proceeding on a documented assumption is preferred.
Then honour it. If someone flags an assumption and gets criticised for not waiting, they will wait next time, and you will pay a day per question for the rest of the engagement.
Meetings that earn their place
- Use synchronous time for decisions with several options, disagreement, or debugging together.
- Handle status, routine questions and code review in writing.
- Give every meeting a written outcome, or it did not happen for anyone absent.
- Keep a reliable window when people can expect a response.
- Cancel recurring meetings that stopped having a purpose.
The habit that matters most
A short end-of-day note: what moved, what is in progress and where it stands, what is blocked and on whom, what is next. Five minutes to write, and it removes most of the friction that distance creates.
It also builds a record. Three months in, the history of those notes answers questions faster than anyone's memory.