How to make a phone call you keep avoiding

Write five things on paper before you dial: what the call is about, the result you want, your reference number, two facts, and your first sentence word for word. Then dial, read the first sentence, and follow the short list below. Before you hang up, ask for a reference number and a name.

This is for the call you've had on your list for days or weeks: a billing problem, a booking, a cancellation, a chase. It can't tell you why calls are hard for you in particular, and if dread of the phone is getting in the way of work or health, a clinician is the right person to ask. This is admin help, not medical advice.

Why a call stalls when the task is small

You have the number. You've had it for three weeks. Nothing stops you from dialing except that a call asks you to do several things at the same moment: remember why you're calling, listen to someone you can't see, keep your main point in mind, answer their questions, write down the reference, and sound like a person who does this every day. There is no warm-up, and you can't pause it or read it back.

Many people describe this as too many things held at once, not a lack of caring, which may be why telling yourself to just get it over with hasn't worked. No one has proven a cure for the stall. What coaches and clinicians often suggest, and what is worth trying, is to take every one of those jobs out of your head except the talking. That is what the five things are for.

Example: the five things, filled in

An illustration, not a real account. Say a phone company charged you $45 twice on the same day and you want one of them back.

How to write each of the five

Paper is best, because you can't lose it behind another window. A note on your phone works if it's the only thing open.

1. What it's about, in one line. Write it the way you'd say it to a friend: "the double charge on my phone bill." If it takes two lines, it's really two calls. Pick the one that comes first and put the other on a separate page.
2. The result you want, in one line. Decide it now, because it's the thing that slips away halfway through explaining how you got here. A refund, a new date, a cancellation confirmed in writing. If the call wanders, this line is where you come back to.
3. The reference. Account number, order number, booking code, or the name and address the account is under. Put it where you can read it, not where you could find it. Hunting through an app while a stranger waits is the moment many calls come apart.
4. Two facts. A date and an amount, or a name and a date. Two, not ten. Anything more lives on the statement or email you've put next to the page.
5. The first sentence, word for word. A full sentence, written out. Leaving it as "I'll work out how to begin" is how the number stays in your phone another week.

Set up the room

Two minutes, and only the ones that apply to you.

Pick the time now

Later today isn't a time. Choose one exact time, add ten minutes of buffer before it, and treat the buffer as the moment you read your page once. If you'd rather call right now while everything is fresh, that's the other good answer. The one that doesn't work is leaving it open. Planning when you cannot feel time pass has more on naming a time so it stops sliding.

The first sentence, by kind of call

Take the closest one and change any of it. Yours can be shorter or clumsier. It only has to get you through the first fifteen seconds, and you can read it. Say it out loud once before you dial.

If the call is a harder one, like telling someone no or giving bad news, the opening lines are different. That's covered in how to say no or give bad news on the phone, and there are more openings for billing, chasing and canceling in scripts for the admin calls everyone dreads.

During the call

Short on purpose. Anything longer is unreadable while someone is talking to you.

1. Read your first sentence. Then say the result you want, in your own words or straight off the page.
2. Answer their questions from the page. If they ask for something you don't have, say so and ask what else would do.
3. Write down what they tell you as they say it: names, dates, anything they promise.
4. Ask what happens next, and by when.
5. Before you hang up, ask for a reference number for this call and the name of the person you spoke to.

Lines to have ready mid-call

Put these at the bottom of the page. You're allowed to use every one of them.

If you get voicemail or a hold queue

A voicemail is a smaller version of the same call, and you can rehearse it on the page. Leave your name, one line about why you're calling, your number said slowly, then said again, and a time you'll be free. Then write down that you left it and when. That counts as making the call, and it gives them the next move.

On hold, keep the page in front of you and put the phone on speaker. Decide before you dial how long you'll wait. Twenty minutes is a fair limit if you have nothing else in the day. When it's up, hang up, write the time you called, and pick your next time. If they offer a callback, take it. Some menus route you to a person if you press 0 or say "representative". It's worth a try, and it doesn't always work.

If it goes badly

You might freeze, lose the thread, get someone unhelpful, or feel your voice go. None of that ruins the call. What you need out of it is still the same: a name, a reference, and what happens next. If you get those, you can stop, and the next call starts from where this one ended.

If you're being pushed to agree to something, you don't have to answer on the spot. You're allowed to ask for a minute. You're allowed to say you'll call back.

When you hang up, write four lines under your five things while it's fresh: the date and time, who you spoke to, the reference, and what they said would happen by when. That page is the first sentence of your next call, and it is the reason a call that didn't resolve wasn't wasted. Then decide whether you're done, waiting, or need to call again, and put an exact time on it.

If you can't get yourself to dial

Writing the five things is already the hardest step for many people, so if that's all you did today, keep the page. It will still be there tomorrow, and starting again from nothing is what makes the second attempt feel heavier than the first. If even the page won't start, what to do in the next ten minutes shrinks the first move until it needs no push, and the first physical step, with examples shows what that looks like for calls.

A ladder, if the real call is too big

Coaches often suggest working up from easier calls. It's worth trying, not proven, and you can skip any rung.

1. Rung 1: the page

   Write the five things. Stop there if you need to.

2. Rung 2: no one to answer

   Call after hours and leave the voicemail, or listen to the recorded greeting.

3. Rung 3: an easy call

   Ask something with no stakes, like opening hours or whether they can help with your kind of problem.

4. Rung 4: the call

   Dial with the page in front of you and read the first sentence.

When a phone call isn't the only route

Check whether the company takes the same request by email, online chat or a form. For a billing problem or a cancellation, writing also leaves you a record. If you'd rather write, the email you keep not sending works the same way, with your first line written out. Some things do need a voice, like proving who you are, or something urgent, and it's fine to do those with someone sitting in the room while you dial. They don't have to do anything.

When preparing turns into stalling

It happens. The page gets tidier and the phone stays where it is. Give yourself ten minutes to write the five things, and if you find yourself rewriting the first sentence a fourth time, dial. A slightly clumsy opening that you actually say beats a perfect one you never do. If the number has been on your mind for months and the guilt is the heavy part, how to deal with something you have put off starts from there.

Questions people ask

Where the Companion fits

The Make a phone call walkthrough in ADHD Life Companion asks these questions one at a time: what the call is about, who you're calling, what a good result looks like, what's worth having in front of you, and anything you must not forget to say. It then offers an opening line to use, or you can write your own, and asks whether to call now or name one exact time today. During the call it shows your own words back to you. If you close it halfway, it reopens at the question you left. It doesn't ask for account numbers or amounts, and it isn't a diagnosis or a treatment. It's the five things on a screen, in order.