Just a word

In January I made a New Year’s resolution to remove the word ’just’ from my vocabulary this year. Not the kind of ‘just’ meaning ‘fair’ as in “He is a just person”. I mean the kind of ‘just’ as in “I’ll just do that”. “I’ll just do this first.” “I’ll just make that phone call then I’m ready” and so on. All those apparently small little things that we don’t think will take much of our time or energy.

But when we do that, we’re cramming. All those small little things we do usually end up taking more time than we thought. What we think takes a minute takes five, and so on. Especially we time-optimists are excellent at thinking we can fit in all sorts of things. We squeeze as many things into our day as possible. We want to be super efficient, multi-task, juggle many balls at the same time.

Trouble is, we never know which one will be the final drop, the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Then suddenly we find ourselves burned out, tired, exhausted. We wonder what happened. How we talk to ourselves makes a difference.

Previously I’ve worked on removing the trio of ‘should’, ‘have to’ and must’. As one therapist put it: “Don’t must-erbate!”

How could you language yourself differently in 2014?

As for me, before I start with my new vocabulary, I know it’s already March, but I really should just make that phone call first…

//Allie

Allie Edwardsson är författare till ”Cracking the Code of International Communication”.
Läs ett smakprov här, beställ boken här.