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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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Topics: Web-based Services |
June 24th, 2008 at 11:27 am
While I applaud the “measured” approach to digital communication…like anything…it is more complicated than outlined. Some communication does not need further reflection as the response is obvious and should be quick. Other communication should have some reflection before responding and this is an important process.
Too often, multi-tasking is the culprit for poor communication not the need or desire to respond quickly. People need to exert more focus in their daily communication not necessarily take more time.
June 24th, 2008 at 11:52 am
Because time is money Mark. It’s valuable time. If you slow down, someone else will pick up your pace for you. That’s just how the world works and you can see the same behavior outside of the tech world. We live in a fast paced world so we have to keep up with it in order to some day get ahead.
June 24th, 2008 at 11:57 am
Corvida,
In many cases, doing and acting as quickly as possible is a good and pragmatic approach given competition often makes it necessary to act ASAP.
But there are also many situations where thinking things through often leads to a better, more productive result. Rather than charging into the fray, it can be smarter and better to take a few deep breaths before taking the plunge.
Mark
June 24th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
[...] Evans has a post today in which he talks about the importance of thinking through our contributions to conversations. [...]
June 25th, 2008 at 10:06 am
Good idea Mark, we need it