Ever find yourself regretting something you’ve said? Try this.

I remember a meeting I was in a few years ago where a change was suggested to a service flow. I immediately looked at the guy who suggested it, shook my head and told him why I didn’t like it. My intention wasn’t to completely shut him down, but that’s what happened. The rest of the meeting was tense and it was my fault. 

Ever been there? Where you said something you regret? Or maybe you don’t regret what you said, but you regret the way you said it. Maybe you’re like me and sometimes you say no too quickly or too harshly. 

Or maybe you’ve been frustrated with a situation, or someone said something that rubbed you the wrong way, maybe an email or a text came through that just irritated you and you responded without thinking. That’s been me more times than I’d like to admit. 

After that meeting (and apologizing to my co-worker!) I began implementing a rule of thumb for response. I call it the 30-30-30 rule. The rule is this: If I feel agitated, I wait to respond. I wait 30 seconds, 30 minutes or 30 hours. 

If it’s in a meeting or any in-person conversation, I try to wait 30 seconds to collect my thoughts instead of immediately responding. If I would’ve done that in the situation above, the meeting wouldn’t have been so tense! 

If it’s a text, email or something of that sort, I might wait 30 minutes. That gives me time to think through my response, the person’s intent, etc. This is important because we all know the tone of a text or email can easily be misinterpreted! 

If it’s a serious issue, I may wait 30 hours. Sometimes sleeping on a situation is the best thing I can do. The next day I’m rarely as agitated, I’ve had time to think about the suggestion, and often I’ve realized it’s not as big of a deal as it may have seemed. 

The next time you’re faced with a situation when you’re tempted to respond quickly and shut something down, give it 30 seconds, 30 minutes, or 30 hours. Sometimes a little space can make a big difference! As difficult as it is sometimes to believe, most issues don’t need to be resolved immediately. Often 30 seconds, 30 minutes or 30 hours later is immediate enough.