How to hang up

How much time do you spend on long phone calls with people who drain you? Do certain people in the office soak up a lot of your time, with little impact or result?

It might be a clingy acquaintance, a family member, an annoying colleague or a mum from school. It's often someone who has a lot more time on his or her hands than you do.

How do you extricate yourself from this scenario? Someone I know makes wild gestures to her husband that are a signal for him to ring the doorbell if a phone conversation is getting out of hand - a fabricated circuit breaker.

Many of us have little time to achieve everything on our lists, let alone save time for ourselves. We need to be skilled at protecting our boundaries.

Start today

Become better at ending conversations tactfully. If a phone call or face-to-face chat starts meandering when you have better things to do, simply say, 'What can I do for you?'

It's polite, helpful, cuts to the chase and sits more comfortably than making up an excuse.