Mental health tip of the day
Stop answering the phone. Let the answering machine or voice mail answer it. If it’s a telemarketer, they’ll hang up. If someone has something to say, they’ll say it and you can call them back at your convenience. There’s no reason you have to jump to when someone calls. You control your time.
I do this. Unfortunately, I have at least one friend who will not leave messages. Therefore, I never speak with him.
Go even further and get 2 things that I happen to have: 1) caller id, so you can peek and see who is calling and pick up if you’re inspired – it saves them having to wait for your message machine; 2) privacy director so that people calling from lines that can’t be screened with caller id get a machine that doesn’t even ring the phone at my house unless they actually speak with it – this weeds out most of the telemarketers. In fact, I’ve been running this set up with the answering machine off for the past few weeks. I can see who called and when on caller id and call them back. They don’t have to leave a message. Only catch is people constantly tell you “I think your answering machine is off or something.” Unfortunately it’s not yet possible to have no phone at all, although having just a cell phone is possible these days I think. When I move I might try it.
It took me a while to train myself to stop feeling compelled to answer the phone. Now I never do.