Different people, months apart, so I am taking it seriously. My internal experience is that I get excited and I am agreeing with them, or I have thought of the thing they are about to say and I want them to know I got there too. From the outside it clearly does not land that way. The problem is that I cannot catch myself in the act, so I do not know what to practise.
Half of interrupting is fear of losing the thought. Give yourself somewhere to put it. In meetings I write two words on paper and the urge disappears instantly, because the thought is now safe. Socially, the two words go on the back of my hand or nowhere at all, and I have found that a thought worth saying comes back and one that does not was not worth the interruption.
Learned this from a colleague who took notes constantly and I assumed she was very diligent. She told me it was purely so she would stop talking over people.
Worth knowing that this is partly regional and partly family. In some places overlapping speech is the sign that you are engaged, and pausing between turns reads as coldness. In others the pause is the whole grammar of politeness. If both people who mentioned it come from the same background and you do not, you may be running a different protocol rather than being rude. Does not mean ignore it, just means the fix is calibration, not personality surgery.
Ask a friend to tap the table when you do it. Three sessions and you start hearing it yourself.
@circadian_cass · 2mo ago · 3 replies
Record yourself. Voice memo on the table during a normal chat with someone who knows you are doing it, then listen back the next day. It is unpleasant and it is by far the fastest fix, because the gap between what you remember and what is on the tape is the entire problem.
When you listen, sort the interruptions into two piles. Overlap where you say yes exactly and they keep going is fine and is how enthusiastic people talk. Takeover where they never finish the sentence is the one costing you.
The drill that worked for me: breathe in through the nose before you speak. One nose breath is about a second, it is invisible, and it is long enough for them to finish. Trying to think about not interrupting does nothing. A physical cue you can actually perform does.
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@leech_wrangler · 2mo ago
The two pile thing matters. I spent a year suppressing all overlap and became a much worse listener, because I stopped signalling anything and people thought I had lost interest.
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@labcoat_lior · 2mo ago
Recorded a coffee with a colleague. Eleven takeovers in forty minutes. Grim but useful.
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