Delivered Does Not Mean Available

Let’s talk about text messages.

How many times have you sent a text only to forget about it completely? Or waited hours, days or even weeks for the other person to respond?

Now, obviously, if it is something incredibly important, hopefully we have not forgotten how to function as human beings. Pick up the phone. Call them. Follow up. Try another way to communicate. We do still have options.

But let’s flip it.

How many times have you received a message, seen the notification pop up on your phone or watch, read just enough of it to know what it says…and then intentionally not opened it?

Don’t tell me you haven’t done this. Sometimes you leave it sitting there on “delivered” because you need a little more time.

Not because you are mad.

Not because you don’t know the answer.

Not because you don’t like the person.

Sometimes you are just trying to finish what you are already doing. Sometimes you want to be present with your kids, your work, your dinner, your own thoughts, whatever it may be. And sometimes you simply do not want to talk to nine million people at once.

Because, honestly, people are constantly trying to reach us.

There’s the good old-fashioned phone call. Text messages. Email. Facebook Messenger. Instagram DMs. LinkedIn. WhatsApp. Snapchat. Teams. Zoom chats. Whatever internal messaging system your company uses. And I’m sure I’m forgetting several.

Then pile on everything that is not technically someone speaking directly to you but is still competing for your attention: social media content, news, podcasts, radio, TV, alerts, apps, advertisements and everything else we voluntarily or involuntarily consume all day long.

It is a lot.

And lately I’ve noticed something, especially among women somewhere in that 30-something to mid-40s-ish stage of life. We’re pulling back.

Maybe not dramatically. Maybe nobody is making a big announcement about it.

But I see people taking longer to respond. Turning things off. Becoming a little less available. Giving themselves permission not to answer everything immediately.

And I’m one of them.

I have been consciously trying to give myself permission not to reply right away.

I’m not talking about being rude. If it is business-related, I absolutely want to get back to someone in a reasonable amount of time. If it is a potential new client and the work makes sense for me, of course I want to have that conversation. I care about being a good communicator.

But every message does not deserve immediate access to me.

And that took me a while to learn.

Sometimes somebody texts you a random question they could probably answer themselves with about 30 seconds of research.

And listen, I know that sounds terrible.

I like helping people. I like being someone people can come to. I like knowing things and being useful and being a resource.

But there are also moments when someone asks the first person they think might know the answer instead of taking one extra second to figure it out themselves.

And when that happens over and over and over again, you start realizing something:

Your time is being spent before you ever decided how you wanted to spend it.

Our time is precious.

Who we give it to, how much of it we give and when we choose to give it should be thoughtful.

Too often, we hand people little pieces of ourselves all day long because they asked for them.

A text here.

A quick question there.

An email that “should only take a second.”

A Facebook message.

A follow-up to the email because apparently 20 minutes was too long to wait.

None of those things individually feels huge.

But together?

They can absolutely wear you down.

And one of the things I have become much more aware of is that communication carries energy with it.

I work from home. I own my own business. I create my own schedule. I am very fortunate that I have a lot of flexibility when it comes to how I work and how I make time for my family.

But even with that flexibility, I can feel when someone else’s chaos starts trying to become mine.

You know the feeling.

Someone is overwhelmed. Disorganized. Running late. Behind on something. Frantic about a deadline they knew about three weeks ago.

And suddenly their urgency arrives in your inbox.

It can come through in a text just as easily as it can in person.

I have really trained myself not to immediately hit reply when that happens.

Because just because somebody else is operating at a 10 does not mean I need to join them there. I do not have to absorb somebody else’s lack of organization. I do not have to match their energy. I can read something, think about it and answer when I actually have the capacity to answer well.

That has been a big shift for me. And honestly, I think we could all stand to think a little more about how we communicate, too.

How you deliver a message matters.

That was drilled into me when I managed teams and when I was being managed myself. Communication is not just about getting information from Point A to Point B. It is also about timing, tone, professionalism and respecting the person on the other end.

And professionalism does not mean every email needs to start with “Dear Sir or Madam.”

I actually love that communication has become more human. I love that businesses can sound like people now. I love that we do not have to communicate like robots. But I would also love to see us bring back a little bit of common sense around how we contact people.

If you sent me an email 20 minutes ago, you probably do not also need to send me a Facebook message. There is a very good chance I just have not checked my email yet.

And I will tell you this: I do not have notifications turned on for almost anything. Incoming phone calls and text messages. That’s about it.

No social media notifications. No Snapchat alerts. No constant buzzing every time somebody likes, comments, sends, tags, reacts, follows or decides they need something from me.

After spending about a decade working in social media, I have had enough notifications for one lifetime.

It was wonderful work in a lot of ways.

It was also exhausting.

If I want to check an app, I will open the app.

If someone sends me a message through social media, I will eventually see it.

But I refuse to let every platform decide when I need to stop whatever I am doing and look at my phone.

And while we are talking about communication, here is another thing I think we have lost a little bit: the personal touch. I see this especially when people are trying to get donations, sponsorships, volunteers or support for something. We default to Messenger. We send somebody a generic Facebook message and hope for the best.

Call them.

Reach out personally. Especially if you actually know them.

You are far more likely to get somebody’s attention when you treat them like an actual person instead of one more name on a list.

And half the time, the person checking a business Facebook page is not even the person who can say yes or no to your request anyway.

We have more ways to communicate than ever before.

Yet somehow, I think that has made us worse at deciding when, how and why we should communicate.

So maybe the goal is not to become less available. Maybe it is to become more intentional.

Answer when you have the capacity to answer.

Call when a call makes more sense.

Email when email is appropriate.

Give people enough time to respond before chasing them across three different platforms.

Turn off some notifications.

Let things sit sometimes.

Finish the conversation you are already having before jumping into the next one.

And remind yourself that being reachable does not mean you have to be reachable every second of every day.

A little challenge for you

For the next week, pay attention to your communication habits.

Before you immediately answer something, ask yourself:

Does this actually need my attention right now?

Before you send someone a message, ask:

Is this the right way to contact them? Do I really need an answer immediately? Could I figure this out myself first?

And pick one notification you absolutely do not need.

Turn it off.

See what happens.

My guess?

The world will keep spinning.

People will still find you.

And you might get a little bit of your own attention back.