Stop Answering Your Phone And Reject Ineffective Work

The Rule

For as long as we allow them, phone calls will pour ineffective work into our laps. To combat this, I’ve established this two-part rule:

1. Ignore any phone call the first time it’s received.  If it is urgent, important, and only you can handle it, they will call again.
2. Only return someone’s phone call if they leave you a voicemail. If it is you, and only you, that the caller must speak to, they will try all available means to get a message to you, including a voicemail.

Why We Need The Rule

Answering Your Phone Is A Bad Decision

A phone call’s ring is no different to a human walking up to your desk and barking, “immediately stop what you’re doing and listen to me.” How should you react to such an interruption?

In principle, to be effective, we must focus all our energy on what is most important; after that, second-most. Bearing this in mind, what are the odds that by addressing this interruption (the ringing phone), we learn of something of greater importance than what we were doing before? I note, urgent, does not mean important.

The odds of losing your focus on the important task at hand, if you take a call, is 100 percent. This focus may not return.

If I had to estimate, I’d say one in one hundred phonecalls inform me of something more important than my most important task at the time, but I’m very good at planning my work and being conscious of what matters and what does not. Whatever your answer, it won’t be greater than 100 percent. Whereas:

• The odds of doing important work if you ignore a phone call and carry on with the task at hand, are 100 percent.
• The odds of losing your focus on the important task at hand, if you take a call, is 100 percent. This focus may not return.

As construction professionals, we are all familiar with managing risk, and this is no different. Risk management must consider both the severity and likelihood of an outcome.

Why Then, Do We Answer The Phone?

Considering The Probability Takes Time

Most people have never taken the time to examine whether or not answering a phone call is a good choice. When we make a call, we only consider how important the call is to us. We don’t question whether or not it is important to the recipient. Nor should we, to be honest. We must contemplate our priorities and leave others to contemplate their own. The trouble is we don’t contemplate our own. When our phone rings, we seldom think. We just answer because it might be important and don’t consider the probability which, as discussed earlier, is slim.

The standard, skewed perception of today’s corporate world is, if you don’t look busy, you aren’t busy.

We don’t consider the probability because that takes time to do so, and the phone isn’t getting any quieter. Only by deciding beforehand, based on likelihood and importance, can we confidently ignore a phone call. Decisions made in an instant, are seldom the wisest.

Perception

The standard, skewed perception of today’s corporate world is, if you don’t look busy, you aren’t busy. Fortunately, it’s easy to look busy. One way is to pick up your phone, comply with the caller’s needs, and walk off to attend to the new seemingly-urgent task. Onlookers will see you as a hard-working, valuable asset. Sooner or later, though, when they learn that you completed nonessential work instead of essential, those onlookers’ perceptions will shift to what is true.

Emotions – We Don’t Like To Be Ignored.

We’ve all experienced a time when we desperately need to speak with someone (let’s say Steve) and become increasingly frustrated each time we hear, “you have reached the voicemail of Steve…” Later we might see Steve at his desk ignoring call after call and feel our blood boil again. We don’t like to be ignored and, chances are, Steve ignores our calls and therefore deems us unimportant. If our phone rings at that very moment, there’s no way we’ll ignore the call. We don’t want to treat others the way Steve treats us.

because we consider their feelings, we answer our phone, whether or not we believe it wise.

Here we are letting our emotions get the better of us. Steve may have been wise to ignore our call. Now, we have allowed ourselves to be wastefully distracted by (a) how Steve conducts his affairs and (b) a likely-unimportant phone call because we don’t want to be seen as rude, which is highly ineffective.

Unfortunately, most people feel that when a phone rings, it should be answered. It’s as though ignoring a phone call is the same as neglecting your responsibilities. And because we consider their feelings, we answer our phone, whether or not we believe it wise.

How To Easily Enforce The Rule

Ideally, we would have the unwavering strength of character to ignore phone calls, crying out for attention and disturbing the office peace, because we can explain our decision later when questioned. We are human, however, and don’t always possess such strength. Furthermore, we easily forget our priorities. Ignoring calls, therefore, is not necessarily easy.

Fortunately, technology can help us. Our smartphones have a fantastic feature called “Do Not Disturb.”

Below are screenshots from my iPhone XR. This feature is accessed from either the control center (the ‘moon’ icon) or under Settings (root directory). Please note my old iPhone 6 and the Samsung my last employer gave me both had this option.

The feature allows you to:

• Set your phone to silence all calls between a set time. You can set this time window as your work hours, so you’ll receive your calls in the evening (assuming you (a) want to and (b) have a single for personal and professional use).
• Set your phone to sound any second call made from the same number within three minutes; this is the “repeated calls” option. This option is fantastic because if someone desperately needs to get ahold of you, they will call again and, this time, the call won’t be silenced.

Hold firm and consistent with this rule. The moment you allow one exception, others will pour in too.

With the Do Not Disturb function enabled, you will not have to ignore any calls! You simply won’t hear them. You can focus on the crucial task at hand, and when it’s complete, check your phone and address anything that deserves your attention. If anyone needs anything urgently, they’ll ring a second time, and you can pick up your ringing phone if you deem it wise.

Exceptions To The Rule

There are no exceptions.

Hold firm and consistent with this rule. The moment you allow one exception, others will pour in too. Anyone dieting knows that the second cheat meal can only come after the first, and it breaks through with far less effort than the first.

Notwithstanding, there may be circumstances when you want to hear a phone call from a particular individual on the first ring, such as a call from your overdue, pregnant wife, or your child’s school. Well, our intelligent devices cater to this, too, with the “allow calls from” option. Again, I’ve shown where this is on the iPhone, but it also existed on my Samsung.

Here, I’ve set the contact group’ favorites’ as an exception. A call from anyone saved as a ‘favorite’ will sound the first time. On rare occasions, I’ve saved a subcontractor with whom I was desperately trying to reach for days as a favorite. Though this was a rare occasion.

Final Thoughts

ALWAYS Follow The Rule

This rule, ignoring a phone call the first time received, must always be followed. Not just when you are “zoned in” on something like a Health & Safety Plan that requires the full force of your mind to tackle, but even if you are on break or touring your site. Whatever you are doing must be important. If it isn’t, then let’s question why you are doing it in the first place. Assuming it is, it deserves your full attention and you should not permit a likely-unimportant distraction like a phone call. Breaks are essential, take them without distraction. If you find yourself wandering on-site with time for a phone call, question why you are there and what you are doing? Don’t permit someone on the other end of a phone to dictate your day’s work, take the control yourself.

Ignored Problems Often Sort Themselves

When you come to return ignored calls, you’ll often hear, “nevermind, it’s been sorted.” Hopefully, you’ll see this as only a good thing, but you may succumb to your emotions and feel bad for some other team member who had to resolve the problem instead of you. You mustn’t feel bad. Remember you did nothing wrong, you did your job and prioritized what is most important. Leave other people’s priorities to them and trust that whoever put out the fire decided it was the most important thing to do at the time.

Just because the problem is important to the caller doesn’t mean it’s important to you. The caller may need to reassess their priorities.

You may now ask, as I have, “what if everyone ignores the call, who deals with the problem, and what if it’s important?” Consider the following:

1. Just because the problem is important to the caller doesn’t mean it’s important to you. The caller may need to reassess their priorities.
2. If the caller is aware of their priorities and deems it their most important task at the time, then they will resolve the problem and not rest until it is resolved.
3. If the caller needs help in resolving this task they deem most important, they will continue to call for help and likely get through to someone (remember a call made a second time will ring). If not, they will find someone in person and express the importance of the task face-to-face.
4. If it is something truly important and urgent, like an accident or emergency, then:
   1. Many nearby people will jump in to help and/or seek further help,
   2. There are alarms for true emergencies,
   3. Repeat calls will be answered,
   4. This is rare, and we should not base our decision on things that likely won’t happen,
   5. If the accident procedure dictates your number be called, then this rule is not for your adoption. You are an exception to the rule.
5. I consider a time when everyone is consciously avoiding ineffective practices, such as phone calls, to be utopian. In that time, our industry would be in a far greater state than it is today and would be something to look forward to, but we are not yet there. The first step is to ensure we are individually effective, which means maintaining focus on the most important task, which means, because of the probability, establishing this rule and ignoring phone calls.

I consider a time when everyone is consciously avoiding ineffective practices, such as phone calls, to be utopian. In that time, our industry would be in a far greater state than it is today…but we are not yet there.

My Voicemail Greeting

As a reminder, the two-step rule is:

1. Ignore any phone call the first time it’s received.  If it is urgent, important, and only you can handle it, they will call again.
2. Only return someone’s phone call if they leave you a voicemail. If it is you, and only you, that the caller must speak to, they will try all available means to get a message to you, including a voicemail.

I help others follow my two-step rule with the below voicemail greeting.  Feel free to adopt this for yourself.

“You have reached the voicemail of George Lintern. If this is urgent I trust you will call again soon. Otherwise, leave a message, and I’ll call back when I can.”

This may sound blunt in writing but is friendly if spoken with the appropriate tone.

Now shed this source of ineffective work!