Although I agree with the interruption part, I think it's sometimes worth cutting people who interrupt you a bit of slack as some people tend to talk more when they get nervous.
I like to interrupt people when I know that I have information to share that will invalidate the next 10min of what they have to say. At that point you’re just wasting everyone’s time if you don’t interrupt.
For example, if you start explaining your fantastic plan for what we can build in 3 days, but I know we have a 1 day budget.
> I like to interrupt people when I know that I have information to share that will invalidate the next 10min of what they have to say.
It’s unlikely that they are delivering a 10 minute monologue without ever offering a pause to let you politely and naturally interject with your information.
More than that though, the idea that you have no need to listen to what they are saying - because you know what it is and is likely a waste of everyone’s time - tells me that you are probably a terrible listener and likely a difficult person to have a conversation with.
In the example you give, by shutting them up, you basically have shut the door on any good ideas they might have - ideas that might be good regardless of the time budget.
This is a common mistake, and I’ve been known to make it too.
You cannot predict what someone is about to say, ever. You can make guesses, and sometimes you’ll be right, but the worst case of “I know what you’re going to say so let me cut you off” being wrong is far, far worse, than letting it play through and being right.
In the former case, you reinforce that this person will simply stop talking to you or telling you stories because they think you are rude. In the latter case, you’ve wasted a few minutes of time but continue developing a relationship and building trust with which you can ask clarifying questions without coming off as rude and alienating your conversation partner.
I think you’re misreading what I said. I’m not talking about predicting what they’re about to say, I’m talking about correcting priors that you know are wrong.
If someone starts with “here’s what we can do in 3 days” and you know only 1 day is available, that’s the perfect moment to spend 10 seconds correcting an assumption. No incorrect predictions necessary.
I used to interrupt people when I found them boring. Of course that signaled to them that I found them boring. That’s obviously not a great signal to send if you want to build a relationship, so I learned to try and find something interesting about otherwise obviously boring statements.
As someone with pretty bad ADHD... it's literally not something I can control. Most people who deal with me regularly are likely now used to it, but meeting new people it can definitely be off-putting.
You can. I have bad ADHD too, and you can learn coping mechanisms for it. Get a little notebook and write notes as you listen, so you don’t forget, for example.
It isn’t easy, but it’s possible, and over time it does get easier.
Part of it is how I was raised, part of it is that I'll forget whatever I have to say in like 5 seconds. Often times, if I'm having deep technical discussion I'll interrupt to ask clarifying questions while the specific topic is still relevant because it's easier for me to digest related information without gaps.
> I'll interrupt to ask clarifying questions while the specific topic is still relevant
As someone who usually does not like to be interrupted, I would have no problem being interrupted this way. I prefer being understood as I speak so I can clarify and possibly adapt as we speak.
More specifically: interrupting to advance or clarify what a speaker is saying is very, very different from interrupting to redirect a conversation (especially interrupting to change topic to the interrupter's preference).
Interrupts from an active, engaged listener are usually received positively.
Most people do not seem to mind, and I usually try to avoid cutting people off as much as possible; even if that means I have to be like "hold on, did you mean xyz?" as they start the next sentence/topic. Usually works out pretty well.
On that note, asking a clarifying question in the form of a statement of your current understanding of something is IME the best way to come to an understanding of complex discussion.
I agree with this, fwiw, and do this too. Interrupting is often also a tactic for keeping me engaged, given the ADHD. My advice in the above comment is meant for tangential interruptions rather than clarifying interruptions.
My brain is a stack, and most people are queues, so if I don’t write it down, I have already forgotten it; but that’s only really important for interruptions that lead to tangents.
I'm skeptical that most people's short-term memory is queue-like. More likely that they are better at remembering earlier stack entries, or that they are simply less neurotic when forgetting about them.
That hasn’t been my experience. Most people around me seem to have mental checklists, and new things get added to the bottom of those checklists, not the top.
On the other hand, it seriously drives me insane trying to talk to people who interrupt. I want to finish one sentence and they keep interrupting all the time. Of course, I probably should interrupt more often because I usually have a thought and it's irrelevant by the time I can say it, but I just can't keep a train of thought when others interrupt me. My cache gets flushed and my buffers cleared.
