10 Asynchronous Meeting Examples From Remote Workers

We’ve been talking up asynchronous meetings in this blog series. But like any technology or product, the proof is in the pudding. 

More specifically, the pudding being eaten by those remote workers who’ve been using asynchronous meetings and reaping the rewards.

In this post, we hear from 10 remote workers who’ve seen increases in productivity, free time, and more effective communication.

Before we hear from them, let’s make sure we’re familiar with the asynchronous terminology 👇.

What does working asynchronously mean?

Asynchronous work is when you complete your work, meetings, and communications without real-time collaboration. 

That means removing synchronous communications like Zoom meetings and in-person meetings.

Instead, tools like Slack, Tella, and online document collaboration apps are used to allow online interactions without the need to meet in real-time or rely on instant messaging.

Read Later: Synchronous Meetings vs Asynchronous Meetings: What’s The Hype?

How do you collaborate asynchronously?

Working asynchronously includes both written communication and asynchronous video meetings. More often than not, it also includes the use of project/task management tools.

Asynchronous video

Perhaps the biggest asynchronous tool on the market is Loom. But that doesn’t mean you have to use Loom. No market that became a monopoly ever won customers over.

We tested and documented 20 Loom alternatives and even made our own (Tella). And we believe there’s room for all them to exist. Each one is built with specific users and use cases in mind.

The bare bones of all these tools is you can create asynchronous videos at the click of the button.

You can record your meeting content, add custom animations, borders, and captions, then send to everyone who needs to see it e.g. a sprint demo.

This could be a company all-hands when you have staff in different time zones and it’s hard to find a good time to meet. 

It might be one-to-one feedback on a project where the other person is dedicating the day to deep work. An asynchronous video allows you to send your recorded feedback walking through changes for the final version.

Check out easy it is to use Tella in the video below:

When someone has watched the video, they can action their items, send a video response, or reply via a message.

Asynchronous messaging

When video isn’t needed, or when people prefer to type than talk, asynchronous messaging acts as a meeting using written communications.

You can “meet” in a Google Doc or a Slack channel. Just because there’s no video or audio, it doesn’t mean you aren’t collaborating.

You can host round-robin Slack meetings or use your Google Doc to list out tasks to complete in a set time. Who says meetings have to be the same?

Faizan Fahim, Marketing Manager at Breeze.io, says the biggest benefit of working asynchronously is it reduces the pressure to be online all the time.

“There’s no need to inform my team that I’m away from my keyboard or screen. Nobody expects me to reply instantly. Nor do I expect anyone else to reply immediately.”

The understanding and respect of personal time and deep work are major benefits when you get asynchronous meetings right.

How do you have an asynchronous meeting?

Using a tool like Tella, you can create asynchronous videos and send them to anyone who might be a meeting “participant”. The difference is they don’t need to be with you at the time you are creating the video.

Alan Cassinelli, Product Marketing Manager at Almanac, shares how his team has asynchronous meetings to collaborate on projects:

“The best part of it from a personal POV is that you can get info / take action on the parts of the meeting/doc that are relevant to you.

While most collaboration can happen async, teams still need to coordinate occasional live reviews or office hours. Layering in online scheduling software lets you automate bookings for these touchpoints—auto-detecting availability across time zones, sending reminders, and sharing links anywhere you work. Set routing rules and buffers, spin up round-robin availability for support or sales, and keep focus by replacing back-and-forth DMs with a simple, self-serve scheduler.

Instead of being in hour-long meetings where 10 minutes is relevant, we use async docs you can skim or see where you're tagged and get the info 10x faster.

Our marketing team recently developed a webpage entirely async over two weeks. 

No real-time meetings at all. 

We used an Almanac doc as a brief, created a mockup in Figma, left feedback via an asynchronous video tool, built it in Webflow, got it approved and published. 

Four team members collaborated on it, from South Korea, to Portland, to LA, and NYC. 

It was async perfection 👌”