Originally appeared on: http://web.archive.org/web/20220522170835/https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/more-texting-tips
Texting isn’t complicated… and yet, it is. Here are some more tips from Get-It-Done Guy to help you do it even better.
July 9, 2019
Make it Clear When You’re Done
I’m a big text guy. Text conversations with me go like this:
THEM
Movie tonight?
ME
Sure! Which one?
Into the Spiderverse. 7 pm
YES YES YES YES!!!
Great. See you there.
ME
Looking forward to it. By the way, I heard that you and your parents got into a big fight. I hope everything’s OK.
I’m at work. Let’s talk later.
OK, but I really want to be sure you’re OK. By the way, have you seen the headlines about that book? It’s really interesting. Researchers have found…
When you want to make it clear to someone like me that the conversation is over, you can always use a reaction, as I recommended in my last article on texting. (You perform a reaction when you tap a message and send something like a thumbs-up or an exclamation point instead of responding with text.) But not everyone knows that means “Really, Stever, you’re a worthwhile human being, but please let me get back to work.”
To drive the message home for clueless folks like me, send a message saying “o-o.” It means “over and out.” If your overly-texting friend understands the lingo, no matter how needy they are, they’ll stop. It’s just too unambiguous. (Darn you!) If they don’t know what it means, just write “over and out” in parentheses next to the “o-o” like this:
o-o (over and out)
That way you’re teaching them, even while rejecting them and dooming them to a life of loneliness. That’s very efficient of you.
A Picture Is Worth 1000 Words
Cell phone keyboards lag just behind social media as the most efficiency-destroying, life-sucking inventions to come oozing out of the sociopathic swamp that Silicon Valley has become. So, avoid your keyboard by thinking visually.
Pictures are efficient. My cat picture isn’t just a cat picture; it’s a cry for human companionship. One picture of a cute little kitten with sad eyes equals this whole episode—more than 1,000 words.
If you walk by a movie theater and spot a poster for a movie you want to see, snap a picture and send it to your friend with the text “Let’s go!” The movie poster does all the explaining, so you can enjoy a cappuccino instead of hunching over your phone for the next five minutes tapping out a message.
Photograph the Back of the Napkin
A picture is worth a thousand words, no matter where the words are written. Quickly send a message by handwriting it and then texting a picture of that to your friend. Smartphone keyboards require you to concentrate on the phone, rather than the people around you. So next time an intriguing person of the appropriate sex asks for your number, jot it on a napkin, snap a photo, and text it to them. It’s so easy you can maintain deep, engaged eye contact at the same time. Plus, you now have their number, as well. Who knows? That napkin photograph could lead to a whole new polyamorous family unit for your polycule.
Send Links by Themselves
You try to tell your friends and neighbors, who are feeling morally self-righteous about their recycling efforts, even though their efforts are entirely wasted and aren’t even building a mindset of reusability, much less the logistical or economic infrastructure for it. But they won’t listen to you because you’re their friend, and who takes friends seriously?
Instead, send them a link to a YouTube video of an environmental researcher. Also include a link to a well-researched, journalistic article documenting the origins of anti-littering programs.
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About the Author
Stever Robbins was the host of the Get-it-Done Guy podcast, an iTunes top-10 business podcast, from 2007 to 2020. He is a graduate of W. Edward Deming’s Total Quality Management training program and a Certified Master Trainer Elite of NLP. He holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School and a degree in Computer Science from MIT.
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