Do you dread receiving calls? Do you sometimes get angry when another human calls you? There’s actually a psychology behind this syndrome.
Don’t worry too much… these symptoms are completely natural in the age in which we are living in.
Let’s analyse this.
- 10-15 years ago, you would have loved to pick up phone calls and speak all day.
- As time went by, you slowly started to realize that others calling you were actually more like “people stealing YOUR time”.
- This would have caused you to not pick up all calls immediately, but return them.
- Also in an age where people can text you first, it can sometimes piss people off when they receive calls.
Watch what GaryVee had to say about this at the TAP 2015 conference.
Beware: There’s a lot of F bombs and explicit language in this video. Don’t play it too loud if you’re in your workplace. 🙂
A Personal Confession
For some of you that try calling me but are never able to get thru, I have a confession to make.
You see I’m a kind of person who really values my “time”.
I’ve acquired some key skills and abilities recently which causes a lot of people to ping me and ask for opinions and solutions to their marketing problems.
I never had this challenge 2 years back, and the more I started to get visible online, I slowly started to get contacted from all places – mobile, Whatsapp, Facebook messages, LinkedIn messages and so on.
Initially, I was spending at least 30-45mins a day in quickly responding to all that came in, and probably a few hours on the phone every day.
Over a period of time, this started to get to me and naturally I started returning calls more then receiving calls.
Today, since TIME is my most valuable asset, I do not respond or react immediately, but only choose and return communications.
I’m sure you can relate to this.
I currently return calls more than I receive them, because I value my “TIME”. I feel I can help more people, if I focus on completing my tasks at hand, first.
This is going to be a much bigger issue in the days to come as communication gets faster and easier.
Understanding Personality Types
Another angle to viewing this issue is understanding your personality type.
There are definitely some folks who are more “people-oriented” who love to be on the phone all day, receiving calls.
This situation may not be applicable to them.
- Those who are more “task oriented” (like myself) dread receiving calls, especially in the middle of work.
- Those who are “people oriented” are more likely to respond to calls immediately.
However, if you saw the video above by GaryVee, more than 70% of the conference room did not like the fact that they were receiving calls from another human being. Something to think about?
5 Tips To Setting Things Straight
- Educate your clients, teams & family: If you’re a person who does not like receiving calls during work, communicate that with your contacts in a polite way. The whole reason I’m writing this blog post is just so that I can educate my contacts about my personality type. (Tip) I prefer receiving text messages before receiving a call.
- Use more text messaging: Use Whatsapp or text messaging asking people to message you first, before you call back. I like to practice what I preach – I usually text people before I call them, unless it’s my own team members.
- Mark your work timings: If you’re continuously available to everybody, all the time, it can be a huge problem in your personal life too. I suggest you also educate your contacts on the time you are available. I don’t think you would like to just receive calls late in the night? So set your ground rules. In my case, I usually discourage client calls after 6pm.
- Get an assistant: if you’re a person who gets calls every other minute, it would be best to hire an assistant who can attend to all your calls, filter them and then notify you on the calls you need to return only. This can save you a lot of time.
- Flight mode can liberate you: When you’re in the middle of any important tasks, I would recommend you turn on the flight mode in your smart phone and work without any distractions. I recently posted on how multi-tasking lowers your IQ and is worse than smoking Marijuana.
“Being available to everybody all the time, can really suck the life out of you. Know how to draw your lines.”
Final Thoughts On Receiving Calls
I’m writing this post just to share my personal views on this subject, but you can choose to do what ever is suitable for you.
You may have your own method of managing your time and calls on a daily basis.
The bottom line is that, whether you like it or not, more and more people are beginning to value ‘their time’, and respecting that and responding in the right way can help everybody.
