New Rule: The Law of Two Feet

I’m making a declaration – The Law of Two Feet will apply to all aspects of my life for the entire month of November.

Law of Two Feet by orcmid from Flickr

I learned about the Law of Two Feet at my first Podcamp (now called TechPhx). At this unconference, it is perfectly acceptable to leave in the middle of a session if your needs aren’t being met in the session you’re sitting in. The responsibility is on you to get your needs met and to take action if that’s not happening.

Over the past few weeks I’ve found myself in situations where I realize 10 minutes into a meeting or an event that it’s not what I thought it was going to be and there was no benefit or point for me to be there. I wanted to leave, but I didn’t know how to excuse myself without feeling like I was being rude.

This month I’m going to figure that out. If I feel like my presence at a meeting or event was unproductive, I’m going to take myself somewhere else.

This is going to be like an assignment I got when I was taking improv acting at Jester’z. For a week we had to act on every impulse we had as long as it wasn’t going to get us fired or arrested. I was a 3L at the time so that week I walked out of meetings, wrote weird things on white boards, and randomly sat on tables.

This is going to be fun. Feel free to join me in this endeavor and let me know how it goes!

Darwin meets Dilbert: Applying the Law of Two Feet to your next meeting by opensourceway from Flickr

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