A classic time-waster in business—and often in life—is using language that confuses people, so you need to spend an inordinate amount of time in conversations merely defining and explaining what things mean.
To a large degree, this is unavoidable. No two people define words the exact same way; every human has their own unique language. The fact that you and any other human being can communicate means there is some amount of overlap in your languages. Your and my understanding of English probably overlaps something like 95%, which is why you’re able to read this. But it’s hard to get past that point with anyone.
While this is an unsolvable problem, there are many common confusions and corresponding ways to minimize those confusions. If you at least eliminate the most common sources of verbal confusion from your vocabulary, you’re already ahead of the game. This is important because just wasting meeting time or email back and forth time on stupid stuff feels frustrating and time-wasting to everyone—especially your boss and client. So, every little reduction helps.
Here are two common ones to keep in mind.
The first is not mentioning time zones when organizing meetings with people in different cities, countries, or time zones. “Hey,” you say to the guy on the other side of the world, “can you talk Thursday at 11am?” Well, 11am Tokyo time or New York time? Easy solution, always include the time zone.
But that has a related, secondary frustration that is worth keeping in mind as well. That is that time zone nomenclature changes for half of the year, every year, in lots of countries. If I say, “Can you talk Thursday at 11am EST?” that is at least better than not mentioning “EST” because at least now we’re talking about New York time and not the time on the other side of the world. So, we’re much closer and can make sure we coordinate a meeting time for when everyone is awake. But, for example, the other day someone asked me for a meeting at 11am “EST” but at the time of this, New York happens to be in daylight savings, so (technically) the current time in New York would be “EDT.” This is made even more confusing because in some cities, like New York, locals tend to say “EST” all year round, even when the clocks are set to “EDT”!
What to do? My solution is to always propose times and put in parentheses the city name. “Can you meet on Thursday at 11am (NY time)?” That leaves it completely unambiguous, plus it feels less stilted than using the formal-sounding “EST” or the less-common-so-you-need-to-think-about-it (even for New Yorkers) “EDT,” for example.
A second common ambiguity is the use of the word “next” for something upcoming. Let’s talk about meeting coordination since it’s the subject of the day, it seems. It’s Friday today and if I ask you: “Can you meet next Thursday?”, it’s very unclear whether you mean Thursday in 6 days or Thursday in 13 days. The solution? Reword it to avoid that ambiguity, like using the date instead. Or if you want to use the word “next,” practice dividing it into two words: “this coming” vs. “the following.” If I ask you, on Friday: “Can you meet this coming Thursday?”, it is very clear you mean 6 days from now. If I ask you, “Can you meet the Thursday following this coming one?” it is very clear you mean 13 days from now.
Or perhaps you should just use Calendly and avoid all these confusions!
