Before the pandemic I spent a lot of time in my car.

I still remember in detail the week before everything shut down.

I had meetings at four different Starbucks, Bongo Java, Fido, Satco, J. Alexanders, and three client offices.

That was the norm back then—in-person meetings all over town.

A week later of course my calendar, along with the rest of the world’s calendars, looked totally different.  The “new norm” took over.

Between Zoom and Microsoft Teams and the coronavirus, the definition of a meeting quickly changed from something you do in person to something you do only remotely over the internet. Quite a change, but over the past three years it’s something we have all grown to accept and even embrace as the new norm.

Until now.

Now, in a (sort of) post-pandemic world, no one knows quite what to do when scheduling a meeting.  Some prefer Zooming, some prefer in-person, and there are a few out there who just like an old-fashioned phone call.

We are in meeting etiquette no-man's land.

I was thinking about this as I looked at my calendar for the next few weeks. It’s a collage of online and in-person meetings with no discernable pattern.  Some days I’m 100% Zooming and other days all of my meetings are in person. But most days its a combination of the two.

So, now that we have the choice, which is better?

Online meetings have the advantage of being very time efficient.  With no commute you can have meetings back to back. Online is also handy when you’re trying to coordinate schedules for more than a couple of people.

Granted, you lose out on the face-to-face social cues that are helpful when you meet someone in person.  And it’s sometimes hard not to be distracted by the other commotion on your computer screen. But especially for a quick meeting, or one that comes up last minute, Zooming can be hard to beat.

In-person meetings, however, tend to be more focused.

The effort to drive across town or even travel across the country makes everyone more invested in making sure a meeting is productive. There are fewer distractions when you meet at someone’s office, and nothing beats the level of communication you get when you’re face to face.

But even with the face-to-face upside, by the time you drive to a coffee shop or office, park, and meet— it takes a lot more time versus the meet online option. And it’s especially hard to coordinate schedules and locations when you have more than a few participants.

Meetings, like them or not, are a central activity in most businesses.  With both options having their pros and cons, as I looked at my own schedule, I decided that as a company we need to be more intentional on choosing between the two.

After talking with some co-workers, here’s what we came up with as our guidelines for meeting online or in person:

• For task-based meetings we decided that online is ideal. Meetings that center around project management, reporting status, and identifying bottle-necks should be as time efficient as possible.  These are often 30 minutes or less, involve three or more people and occur on a regular schedule with a set agenda.  Zoom was a clear winner.

• Meetings that are more planning oriented, especially where a white-board would be useful, we decided to default to in-person and ideally at an office rather than a restaurant or coffee shop.  Planning is less defined and involves brainstorming where group discussions happen.

• For any meeting that involves resolving a conflict or building a relationship, we decided in-person always was worth the effort.  It’s hard to really connect over a Zoom.  Social cues, body language, and active listening are key parts of how we communicate and build relationships.

And finally, we decided that it’s worth it to always asking the other participants what they prefer.  Most of the time people are flexible and we can just use our guidelines to decide.

I predict that moving ahead, most people’s calendars will have a mix of the old and new norm, like me, and maybe we’ll all save a little money on gas to boot.

JJ Rosen is the founder of Atiba, a Nashville custom software development firm and IT support company. Visit Atiba.com for more info.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: In-person or Zoom? How to navigate the no-man's land of meetings