In part one we looked at what meetings do to your time and your focus. That’s the practical case for working without them. This one is about something we care about more. For a lot of people, a call isn’t just an inconvenience. It’s a barrier.
A call fills a lot of people with dread
Phone anxiety is far more common than people let on. Research by Face for Business found that 65% of UK office workers feel some anxiety about making or taking calls, rising to 76% of younger workers. That is before you count social anxiety, which the National Institute of Mental Health estimates around 12% of people experience at some point in their lives.
For all of those people, “let’s jump on a quick call” is not quick. It’s a knot in the stomach, a script rehearsed in advance, and an afternoon half-lost to dreading 3pm. A written-first process takes that away. You reply when you’re ready, in your own words, with nobody waiting on the line.
Writing gives people room to think
Not everyone takes in information the same way. Many autistic and ADHD people find live calls harder than written messages, because a call asks you to listen, think and answer all at once, with no record to check afterwards. Written communication removes that pressure. You can read something twice, sit with it, and reply once you’ve had a chance to think it through.
The upshot is usually a clearer brief and better decisions, which we covered in part one. More importantly, it means nobody has to push through discomfort just to get a website made.
It’s more accessible, full stop
Around 18 million people in the UK, roughly one in three adults, have some degree of hearing loss, according to RNID. Phone calls and busy meetings are exactly where that becomes hard work. A process that keeps everything important in writing sidesteps the problem, because it can be read at your own pace, on your own device, as many times as you like.
The same goes for people who are more comfortable reading and writing a second language than speaking it on the spot, and for anyone whose day simply doesn’t contain a quiet, private hour for a call.
Nobody has to ask
This is the part that matters most to us. When calls are the default, anyone who finds them hard has to speak up and explain why, which can mean disclosing anxiety or a disability to a stranger before the work has even started. When writing is the default, none of that is needed. The accommodation is already there. You just work the way that suits you.
We spend our days building websites that everyone can use. It would be a bit odd to then make the process of getting one work only for people who are fine with phone calls.
Still your choice
Async is our default, not a rule. If a call would help you, we’re happy to arrange one, and you never have to justify wanting it. The point is that talking is an option you can reach for, not a hurdle you have to clear.
Read how an async project runs from brief to launch, catch part one if you missed it, or tell us about your project in writing, whenever it suits you. 😺