c/anxiety·Posted by u/jordan_hale·11h ago
How do I stop rereading a two-line email for forty minutes before I hit send?
I needed to tell a vendor the invoice was missing a line item. Two sentences. I wrote it at 9:20. At 10:05 I was still in drafts, changing 'Hi' to 'Hello' and back, reading it in the voice of someone who thinks I am incompetent. I even forwarded it to myself to see how it looked in the inbox. It looked like an email. I still did not send it until I had to leave for a 10:30. Then I refreshed sent mail like the building might catch fire. Nothing happened. They replied 'thanks, we'll fix it.' I wasted forty minutes of a Tuesday on tone. I know this is not a personality. It still feels like if I send the slightly wrong version, I will have to live in that version. How do you actually hit send when your brain wants one more pass?
Peer discussion on askDr.app. Not therapy and not a substitute for professional care.
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u/elena_v10h ago
I set a timer for eight minutes. When it dings I send whatever is there unless it is actually rude. Ugly. Works more than willpower.
u/lila_nguyen10h ago
Same, except I also google whether 'per my last email' is rude even when I did not write that.
u/ravi_kapoor9h ago
Is the freeze worse with people above you, or even with vendors you have never met?
u/nora_klein9h ago
I type it in Notes first so Outlook cannot sit there glowing at me. Then I paste and send before I can decorate it.