I try my best to respond to people as quickly as I can and be helpful whenever I can. However, my desire to help people out can get me into trouble sometimes. I know that seems counter-intuitive, but stay with me.
Yesterday I was on a four-hour call and during the half hour break, I got a text from a friend asking if I was around. Technically, I was and normally I’d want to help this person, but I needed to take those 30 minutes to keep working on a deadline, shove some food in my mouth and (ahem) free Willy before we resumed the meeting.
It might seem obvious to not respond right away or just say, “I’d love to help, but I’m on a deadline. Can we chat later?” But that’s not always the first thing that comes to mind for me.
However, my looming deadline made it easy to say “no” to this person and by “no,” I mean not respond right away.
They wound up taking care of it themselves and everything was fine. Had it been an emergency, of course, I would have reached out sooner, but I was happy to stand up for myself in a very small way. Taking the few seconds to think about what you want to do vs. impulsively responding will always help you (and probably the other person) out in the long run.
Do you tend to respond quickly to messages or do you usually take a step back and think about them before you respond? What would you have done in this situation? Tell me below and if you like what you’ve read, please share it and subscribe below. Thanks!