Rule #6: Respond slowly and carefully
When dancing, it’s best to lead. Move quickly, and your partner will too. Move slowly, and your partner will move slowly.
Communication follows the same rule: it’s best to control the cadence, and you do so by controlling the rate at which you reply to incoming messages. Leave seconds in between messages, and you’ve implicitly set the expectation of quick replies and a rapid fire conversation. Leave hours, and you’ve turned things down a notch. Leave days, and you’ve set the expectation that replies are leisurely (if rather elective).
When we turn down the rate of communication, we accomplish two things: first, we allow for thoughtful, productive responses, creating efficiency and progress. Second, we reduce the number of messages to which we’ll have to respond, creating a smaller overall communication load, and therefore reclaiming time better spent on other activities.
Thoughtful, productive responses are not dashed off by text message A.I., nor are they the outcome of machine-gun-fire Slack messages. They’re not produced by waiting for one’s turn to speak, ideas loaded for deployment and fired into the gap.
Rather, they’re produced by taking time to consider context, your partner, the overall goals of the dialogue, and what’s happened so far — then making a careful effort to produce additional progress through clearly articulated speech and writing phrased as succinctly as possible. Your response may be affirming and additive, enthusiastic and provocative, or it may be a graceful ending, progress created by saying “no” and setting boundaries. In either case, it proves better to send well-contemplated, progressive responses rather than those quickly formed and rapidly sent.
Reducing the quantity of messages received, the natural byproduct of slowing the rate of communication, is one of the primary keys to owning one’s Time (and concomitantly increasing Agency). This reduction in message frequency and volume happens in two ways:
Your interlocutor, expecting rapid response, grows bored waiting for your “tardy” response, assumes disinterest or social slight, and when your response arrives, chooses not to answer quickly (or at all).
You, upon sending your response, choose your words carefully and parsimoniously, sending back a sentence or two against an incoming onslaught of paragraphs. Your minimal approach signals the social expectation of terse communication, subsequently reducing the volume of thoughts to which you’re expected to respond in the future.
Combining both, you’ll create ample space between missives, freeing your time and attention for high-order Impact.
Respond slowly and carefully.
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