This is actually a gently edited post I originally published during the mini-resolutions series I wrote around last New Year’s. But it’s one of those topics that never gets stale, and I know I could use the reminder! Enjoy and put it to good use.
Is there a phone call weighing heavy on your mind right now?
You know the one. The appointment you need to make to get your hair cut, or your teeth cleaned. Or the voice mail you need to return from an estranged relative or the library (yes, it’s time to admit that book is hopelessly lost.) The calls we avoid have a way of blowing up into A Thing, and what once might have only required a quick thirty-second call to take care of starts to seem like a huge ordeal.
This is a recurring pattern with me. Truthfully I dislike the phone and avoid answering it when I can, which means I have far too many voice mails to deal with at any given time. And placing calls is even worse. The messages and “should calls” add up and I waste precious energy worrying about how I haven’t done something that would have been really easy to do. Even easier these days, since we don’t have the excuse of having to find the phone book.
Have you had this experience? If so, let’s all vow to make a call – any call that’s been weighing on your mind or taking up valuable space in your brain. The last time I challenged myself this way, I finally made a very long-overdue call to get a physical checkup. This time I’m scheduling a glaucoma screen (runs in the family and the optician has been telling me to do this for years…). I’m hoping that call will create some momentum so I can knock a few more off the list. Our new puppy really needs a haircut, for one.
Is there a phone call you’ve been putting off? I think most of us have at least one. Why not tackle it today?
I think you’ve read my mind! I’m not a big fan of making phone calls, and I often feel really awkward. There is a phone call I’ve been needing to make since the beginning of December and I keep making excuses. I claim not to have to time, or that now may not be the best time for the person I’m calling. Really, I haven’t had five minutes since December!? I know I’ll feel so much better when it’s done.
Oh my goodness, this is me. I have a whole list of calls I’ve been putting off. Thanks for the inspiration–I’m resolving to make at least one of them today before the big kids get home from school.
Yup, I’ve gotten a lot better at this over the past two years or so, but there are one or two of these that I keep telling myself I need to make on my day off, and then on my days off I’m so busy I completely forget that I need to do this. Putting it off is fundamentally illogical, since I can’t deal with whatever the answer is until I have the answer, and if having a child has taught me anything, it’s that there are very few things I REALLY can’t handle. Yup, these mini-resolutions are definitely the way to go…
This is so me, I hate talking on the phone and pretty much avoid it.Infact anything which requires talking to a customer service exec on the phone keeps getting postponed. I must make me some of these mini-resolutions.
I made some of those calls this week! I finally scheduled an appt. for our dog to be spayed, and I called me Aunt to schedule a time to get together. Next up: an appt. for my car.
You too? Ugh I hate the phone. Causes ALL KINDS of anxiety for some reason. I’ve been trying to apply the “2 minute rule” to phone calls—if its going to take 2 minutes or less, I do it as soon as I think about it; otherwise it gets put off and off and off. Also doing the phone calls first thing in the morning so I feel accomplished straight off the bat (with the added benefit of shorter wait times on the phone usually).
Me too. Hate talking on the phone (except to family members). But if i work myself up to doing it, I feel SO READY to tackle MORE after that! It’s like a big confidence booster. That alone should get me doing similar things more often, but it doesn’t. 🙂
I like your point of the mini-resolutions! I have been always afraid of the big goals, because I felt many times disappointed when I didn’t reach them. That’s why I prefer the baby steps, or as you called it: mini-resolutions. Nice article!
Thank you for this! I HATE phone calls too! It is nice to know I’m not the only one dreading such simple tasks!
]Ahhh! My husband is flying home from CES as I type this! That’s so cool that one of my favorite bloggers was at the same event as my husband. I know, it’s a big one but, cool! Hope you had fun. It does sound overwhelming from what he tells me. Did you go for blog related stuff (i.e new technologies for blogging) or is your husband an engineer or computer guy?
I love the idea of mini resolutions. It makes tasks seem so much easier to accomplish. I am going to think of mini resolutions that we help streamline my days and make daunting tasks more bearable! 🙂 Love your blog!
Great post! I think that that is one of the reasons email is so popular. I would much rather send an email to people than talk to them on the phone. The thing with email is that I can also delay making a decision on something. I can send an email, then wait for a response. With a phone call, there is always the possibility that I will have to make a response or a decision that I don’t want to make at that point or want to deal with. But sometimes I think it would just be easier to deal with it in the phone rather than having all these these decisions hanging over my head.
With certain people, I’m definitely more of an “email” person than a phone person. I just like being able to craft, re-read and edit what I write before hitting send. But this is a good reminder to finally schedule all those appointments and ask all those questions I have from businesses!