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Think, Breath…Then Hit Reply
By Mark Evans | June 24, 2008
We live in a world of instant-gratification and instant communication.
We want things and we want them now. We want to communicate with people and we want to communicate instantaneously and continually.
One of the major challenges within the always-on, always accessible world is the belief that if someone is able to contact you, you’re obligated to get back to them as soon as possible. Rather than think, breathe and reflect, the default is respond ASAP.
Why is that? Why do we feel compelled to reply before really thinking through exactly what you want to say? Often, digital conversations can become complicated and convoluted because not enough thought goes into what should/needs to be said.
Think, for example, how long you take before responding to an e-mail on your Blackberry. Chances are most people probably spend, at most, a minute or two before pounding out a reply even though you could have waited another 30 minutes or even three hours to put together a better answer.
And, often, these responses are done even though you may be in the middle of a conversation or dinner or a round of golf.
What does this happen? What can’t people wait to respond?
Perhaps the best approach is walking away from the keyboard and/or resisting the urge to hit the reply button as soon as you can. It’s difficult but in many cases, a good exercise to pursue.
For the first part of my “Think, Breathe” series, click here.
More thoughts: I probably should have added Twitter as a symptom of our quick reply digital culture given it’s all the rage these days.
As well, I’ve registered www.thinkbreathe.com. Not sure exactly what I’ll do with it but playing around with the idea of making it a places for tips and tools on how to deal with digital overload. Any thoughts?
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