It's not relevant to me right now, but I stumbled on it and wanted to put it somewhere I could find it if when I need it.
What do you do to give yourself the gift of time?
You know that situation. A message comes from a customer or friend or official or someone being wrong on the internet, or...? They are more frustrated than you would like. It gets you flustered in return. You want to hammer out a reply about all the ways you are right and they are wrong and... but you know that won't help. Answering in the heat of the moment only escalates the problem.
What is the thing you do for yourself to create distance from that frustration?
For me, I hammer out the reply, then save it. Not send. Save. Then I put the kettle on.
While the kettle is heating up, I allow myself to brood about the problem. If it is a big problem, I fill the kettle all the way so I have ample brooding time. But the moment the water boils and I pour the tea, I force myself to think and do unrelated things - usually crafting.
Sometimes one cuppa tea is enough. Sometimes I need several. Some problems need sleeping on and I put them aside until the next morning with a quick note to the customer about how I hear their problem and am looking into it. I will get back to them in 24 hours.
Quite often, that reply I wrote in the heat of the moment gets binned. It was not helpful. After tea, I can write something actually useful towards claiming and fixing the situation.
Giving myself, and my customer/friend/official/internet idiot, the gift of time has been one of the most helpful tools in defusing difficult situations.
What's your go-to solution for getting distance from a tricky situation?
1 comment:
This is really good advice. I've learned the lesson that impulsive responses aren't helpful (often the opposite), but I haven't thought to get it off my chest in a draft and leave till later. I can usually apply self-control to not pop off an answer, but then I sometimes forget things I wanted to say. Somehow emotion motivates; it's just that it needs a cooler head to edit and turn it into something useful.
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