First of all, thank you so much for your insightful, honest, and varied feedback on my last post! I truly loved hearing all of the different opinions, tips, and approaches. It has actually spawned an entire podcast episode, so please stay tuned – you may hear your comment again in ‘anonymous tip’ form very soon 🙂
My takeaways from your wisdom were as follows:
1) I de-activated read receipts! (You know, those little “Delivered” and “Read” tags that appear once someone has received or read your iPhone-to-iPhone text). I had vaguely been aware that this was optional, but somehow never managed to take the step to exercise my right to have the option!
The second I did it, I felt a weight lift instantly. Now people could feel free to assume I had read their text . . . or not. The pressure to respond instantly was suddenly GONE.
2) How I treat my texts is up to me, not the sender. Some people love texting. Some people hate it. Some people want an urgent reply. But . . . in the end, it’s entirely up to me how I choose to handle them. I’m not saying I’m going to ignore a time-sensitive plea, or a text from our nanny (or Josh!). But I can feel free to put off a conversational text until later (or ask them to transition to the phone, or email), and to handle other texts like emails themselves if they are professional in nature and not urgent.
By the way, I do NOT receive texts from patients as a rule, and do not give out my cell phone #. The difficulty comes when community members who already had my # for other reasons (maybe their kid knows mine, or we have mutual friends) use it that way. I would never ever text them something containing PHI (Private Health Information) – but they may text me to say “Hey, I’m coming next week and I need lab orders” or something and then I feel pressure to respond and do their requested task right away, even if it could wait until later that day with no problem. I think my #1 is going to help with this greatly!
3) It seems like age is a HUGE factor in how texts are used. And it is not anyone’s fault for being born in a different generation than my own*! So instead of being annoyed at a 20-something who texts as if it’s email, I will be more understanding – and treat them as emails to return! Many times that’s what they had in mind, anyway.
So again – thank you, and more discussion to come in an upcoming podcast episode, too.
Weekend notes:
– I am getting very tired. Thank you pregnancy.
– Work was very very busy last week. Like, insane! Just a lot of things going on, both clinically and with the residency program (interviews are about to start!). And my “day off” was mostly spend packing things up because . . .
– WE TENTED LAST WEEK! I hadn’t mentioned it but . . . we had our house treated for termites last week. Ugh (but yay, because now it’s over!). Luckily, Josh’s parents live approximately 2 blocks away, and were amazing hosts. But it was still painful to move out for several days, especially just weeks after bolting for the hurricane. We moved back Saturday morning. Life has felt chaotic, to say the least. On the upside: our fridge and spices and toiletries are now very very organized!
– Josh took the kids to the museum this morning. I am sitting here actually having coherent thoughts for the first time in days. I really really needed this break!
Workout report:
Pregnancy week 31 (THEME – rest)
M – rest
T – ran 38 min – 1 mi (12 min) then 2 min walk break x 3
W – rest
R – ran 41 min – 8 min @ 5-5.3 mph x 4 with 2 min walk breaks
F – rest
S – rest (felt like death after getting flu shot on Friday – I know it’s not ‘the flu’ but I think the immune response took something out of me!)
S – about to attempt to run because 3 workouts sounds like a much better total than 2, and the kids are still out with Josh!
* Born in 1980, I’ve never really identified with X or the Millennials very well — “Xennials” is probably about right, though I also like references to Oregon Trail or Jordan Catalano** 🙂
** Can you put an asterisk in an footnote?! I had to note that this reference reminds me — Josh and I saw Blade Runner 2049 this weekend! I definitely recommend seeing it, even though I thought it got a liiiiitle long and overdone in the end. We both thought Ryan Gosling was fantastic, but Jordan — ahem, I mean Jared Leto also did an admirable job as a very very very creepy and bizarre supporting character.
7 Comments
I loved Oregon Trail when I was a kid!
Memories….
Haha I was told recently by my department chair that even though I wasn’t a millennial, in some ways I acted like one. This was after a conversation about texting. I love texting. It enables me to stay in touch with people without having to talk on the phone. I’ve never liked talking on thebphone at all, and email is fine… but if you want a quick answer to a question of just to say hi, texting works so much better for me.
Wanted to say I’ve been loving the podcast and have a request for an outsourcing episode part 2. I found it interesting you guys both spent a fair amount of time justifying your desire to outsource house hold tasks because that is definitely not a struggle I have ( though I do try hard to be cognizant of the privilege that allows me to outsource at all!) I struggle more with the trade offs of hiring some to do something and then it is *really* how I wanted it. For example, I know some people love outsourcing the grocery shopping, as you mentioned, but the few times I have tried using a grocery delivery service it has been a really frustrating experience. Produce is either in bad shape or smashed or something gets forgotten. So even though that’s a task that I don’t love and can readily afford to outsource it just doesn’t work for me.
It seemed that a lot of the really good ideas you guys have involved your nanny taking on additional work. But I think it’s great but doesn’t really work for me or pretty much any one I know because daycare is just way more common in my area (and has worked well for us). So I’d be very interested to hear if any of your readers had other creative outsourcing ideas that don’t require another person to already be in your house every day/ week! I loved the idea of outsourcing birthday party planning which was something I was already considering doing but didn’t really think of as outsourcing though it makes sense to me.
I wonder if there are other ways to think about this issue beyond just outsourcing too. My husband and I will talk about "buying time" which for me looks like doing all my shopping at one grocery store rather than driving to Costco even though I know I would save a ton of money. I also have become pretty comfortable with slightly over paying for some things rather that searching out the best possible deal. I know that sort of sounds lazy but I think it’s really just economically rational now that I earn a decent salary. I am sure that there are other ways to do this that I have not thought of yet so I would be very interested in hearing other thoughts!
If you haven’t seen it already, the Oct 6 WSJ article titled "How Smartphones Hijack Our Minds" provides even more reason to spend less time attached to our phones. Pretty much what you already know, but some interesting research studies on various uses of our phones.
I’m sure several people have already shared this with you, but I’m dying to hear your take on this study! http://meeting.nesurgical.org/abstracts/2017/19.c…
It is funny how people view texts differently. I am 60 plus, plus and I feel no pressure to answer ‘on the senders time line’ unless it is family like you mentioned or an emergency. I love texts and find myself dreading answering email…I love how fast and efficient texting is!
"How I treat my texts is up to me, not the sender. " – So powerful!!