Write the angry email, then leave it in your drafts
Nick Maxwell got one yellow light in a performance review. The feedback behind it changed how he handles every problem he wants to solve immediately.
Nick Maxwell was in an end-of-year review at Collingwood, working in operations. His manager used the old traffic-light system: green, yellow, red. Nine greens and one yellow. Nick was filthy about the yellow.
He asked what it was about. The answer was that he is a problem solver. He wants to solve the problem in front of him and move immediately to the next one.
The feedback that landed
The manager's point was not that problem solving is bad. It was that 99 per cent of problems do not have to be solved in that minute. Some do. Most do not. And you will feel differently about the thing in an hour, in a day, in a week.
So buy yourself the time. If you are angry about something, write the email and leave it in your drafts.
What Nick actually does
He writes the message - but in his notes app, not the reply box. Whatever he is feeling in that moment goes down exactly as he feels it. Then he goes back to it the next day.
His reaction, most times, is the same one: what was I thinking. That would have been embarrassing. That was over the top.
Nothing was lost by waiting a day. Something would have been lost by sending.
Why problem solvers find this so hard
This is harder for the people who most need it. If solving problems is the thing you are good at, an unresolved problem sits there like an open tab. You want it closed so you can get to the other thirty things on your list.
Geo's read on it during the episode was that this is what wisdom actually looks like in practice. Wise people do not overreact and do not underreact. They react in proportion. What buys them that proportion is space and time between the trigger and the response.
Making it a habit rather than an intention
Three things make it stick. Write the response somewhere that has no send button, so sending is not one accidental tap away. Put an actual time on when you will look at it again, rather than leaving it open-ended. And when you come back, decide fresh - the draft is a starting point, not something you owe an answer to.