Digital check-ins
Leave your heavy luggage to the side so you can be fully present with yourself and others.
👥 Serves: 11-25 people, 2-10 people, 26-40 people, 41+ people
🎚 Difficulty: Easy
⏳ Total time: 11-30 minutes
🥣 Ingredients: A group of people or your team, Zoom or a similar online meeting platform, sheets of paper, markers
🤓 Wholebeing Domains: Awareness, Community, Digital Consciousness, Liberatory Learning, Radical Care
💪 Wholebeing Skills: Check-in, Digital relating, Emotional intelligence, Empathy, Holding space, Listening, Presence, Reflection, Relating to Others, Self-awareness
Digital check-ins
📝 Description
Our best check-ins for online meetings.
We know it may feel weird in the times of COVID-19, but remember when we used to travel? You would arrive at the airport, head to the check-in desk to leave your luggage and travel “light”. Same thing would happen when arriving at the hotel: after checking in, you would head up to your room and leave your luggage behind so you could enjoy your stay.
The same principle applies to online meetings. Because your participants have been “travelling” from different places before joining your meeting, check-ins serve the purpose of allowing participants to “arrive” into the meeting, break the ice, and be fully present with each other. Check-ins are quick practices facilitated at the start of a meeting to help participants distinguish between their personal space and the mutual space they are “walking” into and decide what heavy luggage they might wish to leave behind. Check-ins also invite understanding, compassion, and support as participants become aware of how everyone’s feeling. They are an extremely useful tool for the facilitator of the meeting to get a pulse of the group and adjust the meeting agenda and activities accordingly.
Your check-in will vary depending on the size of the group and the time allocated for it. For instance, if you have a medium or large group (say 10+ people) and a relatively small amount of time (~10 minutes), there are different possibilities to conduct your check-in: (1) Use Mentimeter or another online polls platform or (2) Ask participants to answer in the chat box. If you have a small group (say fewer than 10 people), you can add a bit more interaction and engagement with your participants. For instance, you can ask them to briefly share their answer verbally, one by one.
Below you find some of our favourite check-ins, adapted for online meetings.
👣 Steps
Step 1 – Frame the check-in
Welcome participants into your online meeting and explain the purpose and flow of the meeting. Then introduce the concept of check-ins as an opportunity to “arrive” into the call, leave their heavy luggage behind, and be fully present with each other.
Step 2 – Choose the check-in question
Choose your check-in prompt based on the topic of your online meeting and your participants. Below are some ideas of our favourite digital check-in prompts.
Drawing & Imagery
- Take a sheet of paper and a marker and draw an emoji that best describes your mood right now. [Then ask participants to hold up their images so they can see everyone’s drawings.]
- Take a sheet of paper and a marker and draw a weather icon that best represents your internal weather report. [Then ask participants to hold up their images so they can see everyone’s drawings.]
- What key in your keyboard best represents how you are right now? [Ask participants to copy/paste the key in the chat box and explain why they chose it.]
- Choose a Dixit card that best represents how you are landing into today’s meeting? [Ask participants to indicate which card they picked and elaborate on why they chose it.]
- If you were… a pizza topping, a song, a movie, a book, etc. – what would it be? [There are so many categories you can choose from!]
Hopes & Expectations
- What is alive for you as you come to this session?
- Why is it important for you to be here today?
- What are your expectations towards this meeting?
- If you weren’t on this call, what would you be doing?
- What is the first word that comes to mind when you think of this topic?
Mindful Presence
- One breath check-in (i.e. only speak for the duration of one breath to express how you are feeling).
- One movement (or still) check-in (i.e. make a movement or find a still position to express how you are feeling).
- EQ check-in (this can be adapted for online meetings using a polls platform like Mentimeter).
- Mindful check-in
- Digital eye gazing meditation
Step 3 – Set the time
Give a general sense of how much time you have available. Is it a quick check-in or do you have space for people to go in depth? Some online meetings are just about participants checking in with each other! We would recommend something between 10 to 20 minutes for a 1.5 or 2–hours online meeting.
Step 4 – No interrupting
Offer a way for people to know when it is time to speak and when to listen. For instance, this could be “raising a virtual hand”. Clarify whether it is a spontaneous sharing (pop-corn style), based on nominations (whoever finishes to share nominates then next person), or with a predefined order (that you share in the chat box for example).
Step 5 – Time keeping
Keep an eye on time and if someone is no longer answering the question and going on and on, then have a kind way of getting them back on track. Depending on how much time you have available and how many participants there are, you may want to give them a time-limit and use a gentle sound to signal when time is up.
Step 6 – What about check-outs?
If you’d like to find out more about how to bring your online meeting to a close with a meaningful check-out, please check our recipes “Digital check-outs”.