01/27/14 19:00:29 ¶ ●

Stop Procrastinating Important Calls With Call Flows

I don’t where exactly to link back to for this. This is one of the results my Priorities approach has resolved into. The thing is once I knew what my priorities are, I quickly realized that to push these “bigger than me” things forward I had to do certain things I feel less comfortable about. I started procrastinating. Procrastination is like an energy that wants to push me back from the things I desire.

Some of the things I procrastinate are important calls. Whether it’s a bank, the tax office, my dentist¹. Just thinking about these calls, I quickly imagine myself in the dentist chair - suffering in pain.

Part of the issue why I was avoiding phone calls is I didn’t know what to say. Obviously I know what I want from the person. I have a task here in OmniFocus that tells me why I’m calling, but how I actually communicate what I want was unclear. Because, as opposed to meetings, which I always prepare for with a mind map, I didn’t make the same effort for important calls. So I came up with Call Flows.

Call Flows

A Call Flow is really super simple. OmniGraffle has this nice Automatic Layout feature where rectangles connected with lines form a layout automatically. I used this for Call Flows.

A Call Flow template:

Write down what exact words you’re going to use. Then all you need to do is call the number. For me Call Flows have taken out the weight of calling, because now I not only know what I want, but how I’m actually going to get it.

Naturally I made a mind map as well.