Becoming Harder to Reach Without Annoying Everyone You Know

00:00:00.000 | All right, what do we have here?

00:00:01.640 | Ooh, 120.

00:00:02.480 | Let's do one more quick question, Jesse,

00:00:03.640 | and then we'll call it quits.

00:00:04.880 | This last one comes from Oscar.

00:00:06.580 | Oscar asks, "How should I organize my circle of friends

00:00:10.800 | "and acquaintances in order to make them stop texting me

00:00:14.020 | "via WhatsApp?"

00:00:15.600 | I'm gonna give you three suggestions, Oscar.

00:00:19.400 | All of these suggestions are gonna be built

00:00:20.920 | on this foundational observation

00:00:22.400 | that I make in my book, "Digital Minimalism,"

00:00:24.160 | which is that this is actually the area

00:00:27.760 | in your personal technology life

00:00:29.820 | that is the hardest to change.

00:00:31.560 | By hardest, I mean the area

00:00:32.760 | where you're gonna get the most pushback.

00:00:34.760 | People worry about social media.

00:00:38.440 | Oh, if as part of becoming a digital minimalist,

00:00:41.840 | I stop using social media as much,

00:00:43.600 | all of these bad things might happen.

00:00:45.860 | I'm not gonna be able to grow my business.

00:00:47.880 | People are gonna miss me and worry, "Where are you?"

00:00:50.440 | I'm gonna disappear from the public discourse,

00:00:52.400 | et cetera, et cetera.

00:00:53.220 | But in reality, when people embrace minimalism,

00:00:56.080 | it's text messaging, instant messaging.

00:00:59.900 | Back and forth conversations with people they know on apps,

00:01:02.860 | that's the hardest place to change their behavior.

00:01:05.320 | They leave Twitter, no one notices.

00:01:07.680 | They leave WhatsApp,

00:01:09.400 | and a private investigator is knocking at their door

00:01:12.140 | with a corpse-sniffing dog.

00:01:13.900 | So let me just make that the foundation.

00:01:15.240 | I feel your pain, Oscar.

00:01:16.400 | But I'm gonna give you three ways

00:01:17.440 | to make this transition away

00:01:18.680 | from constant WhatsApp accessibility.

00:01:21.860 | Three suggestions to give you.

00:01:23.600 | One, I would say apologize

00:01:27.980 | instead of instructing.

00:01:29.720 | So instead of trying to instruct people,

00:01:32.320 | "Okay, everyone in my family, okay, all my friends,

00:01:34.860 | here's how I'm using WhatsApp now.

00:01:36.400 | Here's the right way to get in touch with me."

00:01:38.540 | Everyone will get defensive.

00:01:40.220 | It's the guy with his one-day AA chip

00:01:44.040 | going to the bar and lecturing about alcohol.

00:01:45.840 | People are gonna get defensive.

00:01:47.440 | So I would say instead,

00:01:48.520 | just switch to your new rules for using instant messengers,

00:01:52.280 | whatever those rules are,

00:01:54.160 | and apologize when people complain.

00:01:57.500 | You just simply get ready to say a bunch at first.

00:02:00.800 | "Oh, sorry, yeah, I don't keep WhatsApp open

00:02:02.520 | when I'm working on work,

00:02:03.800 | or I don't keep WhatsApp open when I'm exercising."

00:02:06.640 | Whatever it is, just keep apologizing, right?

00:02:10.480 | And people will eventually get it.

00:02:11.960 | Like, "Oh, I guess Oscar doesn't keep WhatsApp open,

00:02:14.520 | so I cannot expect that if I send him something,

00:02:16.880 | he's gonna get back to me right away."

00:02:18.400 | They're not defensive

00:02:19.240 | because you're not telling them that's better.

00:02:20.960 | They're not defensive

00:02:21.800 | because you're not telling them, "Don't bother me."

00:02:23.440 | You're apologizing.

00:02:25.540 | But the apology is sneaky effective

00:02:28.340 | because even if it annoys them that they can't reach you

00:02:32.220 | because you don't keep WhatsApp open at work,

00:02:34.700 | it's a hard argument for them to make,

00:02:36.500 | "Hey, Oscar, no, no, that's unacceptable.

00:02:38.260 | You need to be monitoring WhatsApp at work."

00:02:39.940 | When they actually put in the words what they're doing

00:02:42.260 | and what in the moment they're hoping you would be doing,

00:02:44.380 | it seems somewhat absurd, and so they don't.

00:02:46.780 | Two, provide a higher friction emergency option.

00:02:50.560 | This was actually an idea that came up.

00:02:52.980 | We called it escape valves.

00:02:56.120 | In my book, "A World Without Email," by the way,

00:02:58.640 | I don't know why I use this royal we.

00:03:00.440 | Have you noticed this, Jessie?

00:03:01.480 | I've noticed this more and more podcast and videos.

00:03:06.480 | There's this real temptation to use we,

00:03:09.680 | even when it's not we.

00:03:11.640 | I guess it makes it seem like everyone has big teams

00:03:14.800 | or seems more important,

00:03:15.720 | but I don't think it actually works.

00:03:17.120 | I think it just sounds weird, but look, I just did it there.

00:03:19.400 | I said, "Oh, in "A World Without Email," we."

00:03:22.900 | There's no we.

00:03:23.740 | It's a book I wrote.

00:03:24.580 | There's not a team of crack scientists

00:03:27.520 | that got together to put together this book,

00:03:29.400 | so I'm trying to be better about that.

00:03:30.980 | Or if I'm talking about this show,

00:03:32.080 | I'll just say like Jessie and I,

00:03:33.760 | 'cause I don't, I don't, I don't know.

00:03:35.200 | There's a lot of that goes on now.

00:03:37.520 | Podcasters, YouTubers,

00:03:38.720 | they all wanna emphasize their teams,

00:03:40.860 | like there's some large office building

00:03:44.640 | that all their workers are in.

00:03:46.700 | Anyways, in my book, "A World Without Email,"

00:03:51.520 | when I was talking about,

00:03:53.200 | it's a slightly different context,

00:03:54.680 | but people reworking professional communication protocols

00:03:59.020 | so there's less ad hoc messaging,

00:04:01.500 | I talked a lot about the importance of an escape valve.

00:04:05.680 | So you give people a way that they can contact you

00:04:10.180 | and get an immediate answer in the case of an emergency,

00:04:14.500 | but it's a higher friction solution.

00:04:17.580 | So like you have to call me, right?

00:04:19.540 | Something that's higher friction,

00:04:20.620 | not impossible, but higher friction.

00:04:23.060 | No one really is gonna use it,

00:04:25.220 | but it provides people a psychological piece

00:04:28.220 | knowing if I did need to use it, I could, right?

00:04:31.560 | So people might be worried in your family

00:04:34.160 | or your circle of friends,

00:04:35.000 | if they're thinking, "Oh, you know, Oscar's not on this,

00:04:36.740 | but what if there's an emergency?

00:04:38.200 | What if we really need him?

00:04:39.100 | My goodness, like maybe this is better that you're on it."

00:04:40.920 | But if they have an escape valve,

00:04:42.420 | "Oh, this is how you get me if it's really urgent

00:04:44.360 | and I'm not on WhatsApp,"

00:04:45.580 | then that issue, that concern goes away.

00:04:48.100 | You're not worried about that anymore.

00:04:51.720 | It also, again, I don't mean to keep coming back to this,

00:04:54.700 | I don't mean to be villainizing

00:04:55.740 | your family and friends, Oscar,

00:04:56.700 | but it diffuses potential defensive responses.

00:04:59.820 | 'Cause there's a response that's like,

00:05:00.840 | "Hey, look, I need you.

00:05:03.340 | I need you to be on WhatsApp because I'm swinging by."

00:05:07.620 | You know, your mother-in-law is like,

00:05:09.060 | "I have to swing by to drop something off

00:05:11.140 | and I need to know if you're there."

00:05:12.740 | If they have the escape valves,

00:05:14.180 | like, "Yeah, but you know what you can do?

00:05:15.140 | You can call me."

00:05:15.980 | It's a bit more of a pain,

00:05:17.060 | but it's there and you can do that.

00:05:19.500 | No one will actually use it.

00:05:20.840 | Escape valves are all about the peace.

00:05:23.300 | Finally, consider personal communication office hours.

00:05:28.300 | So I was reminded of this idea.

00:05:31.940 | I mean, I first heard this idea

00:05:34.220 | from an entrepreneur I know named Chris Yeh.

00:05:37.100 | And then I talked to Chris the other day.

00:05:39.060 | So it reminded me of this concept

00:05:41.460 | that he had innovated years ago.

00:05:43.900 | But Chris had office hours every day

00:05:47.480 | during roughly the same time

00:05:48.620 | when he was commuting from his office back to his house.

00:05:51.220 | He's in San Francisco.

00:05:53.060 | Maybe he was on the 101 and there's traffic.

00:05:57.020 | So he knew there was a 45 minute period

00:05:58.500 | where I'd always be in my car.

00:06:00.220 | And so he had personal communication office hours

00:06:02.720 | for people who knew him, friends, family members.

00:06:05.180 | You can always call me during that time.

00:06:07.420 | And so it's a way that he could stay in touch with people

00:06:09.900 | and have serendipitous conversations

00:06:11.500 | and see what's going on

00:06:12.660 | without have to constantly be monitoring

00:06:14.820 | some other type of asynchronous communication medium.

00:06:17.140 | So personal communication office hours

00:06:18.540 | are a great way of maintaining connection

00:06:21.100 | when people are used to being able to just outsource that

00:06:23.940 | to doing quick messages back and forth.

00:06:26.440 | Now you're like, "Hey, call me, man.

00:06:27.460 | Call me.

00:06:28.300 | This is my time I'm available.

00:06:30.160 | When are you gonna call me?"

00:06:31.260 | Or if they're texting you

00:06:32.220 | and you don't see it till three hours later,

00:06:33.580 | you're like, "Just call me at my next, call me.

00:06:35.860 | You can always call me at these hours.

00:06:37.020 | Call me next time you can, let's talk about it."

00:06:38.740 | So it's a way to have connection with people

00:06:40.380 | with again, not having to monitor that screen all the time.

00:06:43.460 | All right, Oscar, so that's what I'd recommend.

00:06:44.980 | I think you're thinking about the right thing.

00:06:46.660 | I do not think the constant monitoring

00:06:48.900 | of instant messenger type channels

00:06:50.540 | is compatible with a deep life by almost any definition.

00:06:53.580 | It is an issue, but it's also really hard to get past.

00:06:56.660 | Those are the three things I would keep in mind.

00:06:58.220 | People will still complain,

00:06:59.280 | but they'll complain a lot less

00:07:00.380 | if you do those three things.

00:07:01.780 | It is worth it.

00:07:04.040 | You just can't live a focused life

00:07:07.540 | if every four minutes you have to check and jump in

00:07:10.180 | on an asynchronous back and forth conversation.

00:07:13.100 | So reform your WhatsApp usage.

00:07:15.020 | If they still complain, you can blame it on me.

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Becoming Harder to Reach Without Annoying Everyone You Know | Deep Questions with Cal Newport

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