Steven Robbins here. Welcome to the Get It Done Guys quick and dirty tips to work less and do more.

Today's topic is dealing with voicemail and phone callers who interrupt you, derail your focus, and clog your inbox.

The quick and dirty tip is to hold your ground firmly, tell the truth, and blame me.

Robin from Colorado writes in, my client calls with every question distracting me. He won't

email or leave voicemail. He just calls back. I really do have to answer or make a good

argument to everyone that I don't have to answer it. What do I do? Peter writes, how do I persuade people to not leave me voicemail at all? I hate it. Short messages are garbled,

long ones ramble, and it's just another inbox that needs to be emptied. Robin and Peter,

I feel your pain. You're both laboring under a powerful but unquestioned belief. When I was a kid,

my parents made me act good by saying Santa Claus didn't bring presents to bad little boys. I believed. The night I discovered

Santa Claus didn't exist, he took my thesis advisor hours to calm me down. Your version of Santa Claus is

even more evil. You believe you have to respond or at least justify

yourself. You think, if I don't respond, they'll think I'm a jerk, or they'll fire me. I go straight

for the endgame. If I don't respond, they'll despise me, they'll burn down my home, steal my

stuffed tiger, kidnap me, and leave me in a gutter covered with envelopes to die a slow death

by paper cut.

We know your callers won't do as you ask.

Peter's callers won't leave good voicemail, and Robin, your client flat out refuses to use email.

And in both cases, why should they?

They do what they want, and you accommodate them.

Yes, you complain, but you give them what they want, and they don't have to change. And then you feel like you accommodate them. Yes, you complain, but you give them what they want and they don't have

to change. And then you feel like you owe them something? If I were a psychologist, which I'm not,

I might use words like abandonment issues or codependent or search your background for playground traumas

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