Phone Call vs Email | Here’s Why Phone Calls Are A Waste of Time

If you’re someone who has dealt with endless awkward silence on phone calls, emails get the job done without wasting a considerable amount of time. This article aims to focus on the huge leap of productivity you can introduce in your life by going “emails only”.

Before you get down to the entire article, let me make it completely clear that I hold no grudge against phone calls. In fact, I love them for they provide a decent way of carrying out most of our communication needs. There’s a personal connection on a call and discussions are really handy. Apart from this, I often rely on a call if I need to confirm that I’m communicating with a real person over the email.

However, when you enter the professional world and deal with corporate professionals, looking for a phone call every time you need to clear something out is a simple no-no. The reasons mentioned in this article will give you a thorough idea of my productivity motto of “emails only”.

Phone calls leave you with relatively lesser time to think

Have you ever been in that spot where you end up giving impulsive answers only to regret them later? Yes, this is exactly what I am talking about, phone calls are immediate and don’t always give you time to think. The person is sitting on the other side just expecting you to answer and you are panicking. With emails, you get a lot of time to think and process the information so that the decision you make is calculated and well-thought. You can weigh the pros and cons or just consult someone about it.

You can’t possibly review an unrecorded phone call

It is sometimes important to review certain specific things. It can be for the decision you made or just for self-evaluation. Emails always have an electronic tail to follow up. You can just search the name or even the date you sent the email on and get instant results. In contrast to this, there is no possible way to review an unrecorded phone call. All the conversations that happen on unrecorded calls cannot be backed up with any proof.

This tends to play a vital role when you need to get back to a piece of particular information that was discussed on the call. In the case of emails, you can review the shared content as many times as you want. However, you’re left with no other option than to ping the person again if you want to regain that misheard piece of information. What a clear waste of time!

Awkward silence and interruptions make phone calls hectic

It’s time to address the awkward silence all over again, in detail. Not everyone can reply immediately to a situation over the call and this is why 10 minutes end up getting multifold. Apart from this, it gets tiring to deal with other person interrupting before you’ve even finished your point.

Phone calls are great during an emergency but calls are not always important. What if someone calls you with a conversation that you didn’t want to have? Yes, definitely it’s going to be very awkward. It may also distract you from rather more important work. You now just now don’t know what to say or how to get off that call. With email, you just have the option of not replying to it or replying it later when you are free. Thus, emails are far better when it comes to this scenario.

Scheduled phone calls render you with existential overhead

First things first, existential overhead is a concept that revolves around your mental state. It kicks in when you always have that worry element in your mind that you have to answer a 3’0 clock call. This piles up on your workload and affects your mental health. As a result of this, your brain has to register and regularly think about one more task that you have to do at a specific time. With emails, it is quite handy as you can just open your mail and reply anytime.

Phone call disruptions take a toll on the productivity

Let’s face it, phone calls are not always productive. They might often end up into hour long conversations that are hardly any relevant to the work. Suppose you are deep working in a project with full concentration and you get a phone call, the flow is broken and then you have to start over again looking for clues regarding where you left the work. With email, there are no disruptions like that. You can reply to them after finishing your work.

Batch mode becomes a pain with phone calls

Have you ever been on a conference call and wondered how hectic it is? I am not saying that all conference calls are a mess. But just pointing towards the fact that they can be a source of time waste and confusion a lot of times. Let’s be honest, it is easy to email many people at the same time rather to batch calls together. This comes handy when you need to convey the same information to a number of people. In such a case, even thinking about the number of individual phone calls might become scary.

Phone calls do not provide flexibility

With phone calls, you just have two options, to answer it or to keep it ringing. They do not provide you with the options to answer them later at a rather convenient time. There may be times when you are in a meeting or busy at work and you just can’t answer calls. There can also be situations when you just don’t want to answer it right now. This is the flexibility that is being talked about and that phone calls lack.

Emails are a great option in this situation as they provide you flexibility. They provide you with that option that you can reply it any time so that you can plan your busy schedule and answer to all emails at one go.

They often end up in small talk

A lot of time phone calls are just a pure waste of time. People just don’t get straight to the point rather they would talk about everything else in the world. This is why it is natural for some people to gossip or chat-around. A thing that can be communicated in five minutes takes about twenty minutes sometimes just because of small talk. Emails are a much better medium if you want to get straight to point, thus saving a considerable amount of time.

Connection problem in phone calls lead to partial communication

A constant chain of hellos, phrases like “I can’t hear you?” and “Could you repeat?” are not rare with phone conversations. Connection problem is something that is out of your hands and you just can’t really do anything about it. It lays out a very bad impression and causes frustration, thus proving a hindrance to communication. Many a time, to not look like an idiot, one might say yes without listening to what the other person has said. Communication becomes partial when you have to deal with some network issues and even interruptions caused by the person you’ve called.

But with emails, this is not the problem. You never tend to receive partial emails, there’s no tension of figuring out everything in one go. You take your time and analyze the information while communicating over the email.

No attachments or files can be used during phone calls

Phone calls are great as they can let you clarify all things at a go. But have you ever faced the problem that you can’t actually show the person the thing you are talking about? Well, that is taken care by email. It can help you attach images, documents, files and what not. With emails, it becomes more convenient to give context to what you are talking about right there at the same time, thus making communication more effective.

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Phone calls are a great way to add a personal touch. They might come really handy when there is some urgency like a sudden meeting. Moreover, you can’t possibly be emailing your family and most of the known ones whether you want to deal with the unproductive phone calls or not. But if you’re on a serious spree of not wasting your valuable time, emails are what you need to introduce in your life. Make sure to do regular follow-ups if you’re going “emails only” anytime soon.