Priya is leaning back on your couch with her mug balanced on her knee. She begins to explain the meeting to you: “The meeting was fine, but the bit that bothered me was…” Before she can even finish her sentence, you say “Dave?”
She pauses. “No, actually,” she says, speaking in a slightly flatter tone than before. Your face heats up and you nod furiously at whatever she says next, hoping the nodding will cover up the word.
Dave is a frequent co-star in her stories about work, so it was a fair guess. But in this case the guess took the sentence away from her, and she noticed.
Add a small pause before you respond. Find out what your tell is and watch for it.
Let her finish her idea, then hold for one silence. If you jump in anyway, halt, apologize once for cutting her off and hand back the last thing she said. You can still be enthusiastic the whole time.
How do you catch yourself before you interrupt?
Rewind 10 seconds. “The meeting was fine…” starts to come out of her mouth, and you are already inhaling, mouth opening up to speak before she has even reached the end of her sentence.
You’re holding all the breath you are going to spend on “Dave?”
That breath is your tell. Most people have one, so recognize your own and watch for it. A few of the usual suspects:
- The early inhale. Your mouth opens up as soon as you recognize the familiar setup of the story, the way it did at “the meeting.”
- The advice draft. You’re working out how she should handle Dave while she is still describing the room where the meeting took place.
- The detail correction. She says Tuesday, you assume it was a Wednesday, and the urge to correct her feels almost physical.
Mark one for yourself, then use it as a signal to run through this short sequence:
- Keep the thought for later. Your guess of “Dave?” can sit in the back of your mind for 10 seconds or so without going stale.
- Go back to her words. Listen for what actually comes next, past the part you thought you knew.
- Let the sentence end. Even if you know where she is going, let her say it. You guessed Dave, after all.
- Leave one quiet beat. Just wait a second, then respond to what she actually said.
Use a private reminder, something short you can repeat to yourself while she talks:
I can have this thought without saying it yet.
This is not a strict cue. So even if you miss the inhale, you can still catch yourself two words into talking over her and stop there.
How do you know when someone has finished talking?
Studies of conversations in 10 languages have noted that generally people avoid interrupting each other, but they avoid long pauses between turns as well.1
That’s why a single breath in the middle of a sentence can sometimes give the impression that it’s time to jump in, even though the speaker has more to say.
So let the whole thought end, and don’t go by the breath. “The bit that bothered me was…” is only half a thought. Her thought actually continues a few seconds later, when she says the files came in late and she had to rebuild the deck that afternoon.
If her thought still seems incomplete, then wait through the silence. If you’re still not sure whether she has finished, ask her once she has stopped speaking, so you don’t talk over whatever comes next:
Was there more you wanted to say about that?
What do you say instead of jumping in with your own story?
Priya gets to the late files and you really want to unleash your own story from last spring, when your slides vanished an hour before a pitch. It has a great ending and it really wants out right now.
Keep your story until she has finished hers. Then respond with one real question or one brief check for understanding based upon her words.
The University of Maryland’s communication advice is to listen until the speaker is done, and to hold off on forming opinions about what they’re saying until they have presented all of their ideas.2 That’s practical advice, not a script that fits every conversation.
For Priya, it can sound like this:
So you had to rebuild it that afternoon. How did the meeting go?
Watch for questions that are really attempts to give her advice on how to better handle the situation. “Why didn’t you just ask for more time?” sounds curious, but it lands as a judgment on what she should have done. Respond instead with a question to which you don’t know the answer.
When she’s done, you can add your own story by saying something like “I have had a similar situation happen to me before. Would you like to hear how I handled it?” Then let her answer your question as well.
See also how to build on what someone else says in a conversation.
What do you say after you interrupt someone?
Twenty minutes into this conversation, you find yourself interrupting again. “And then they told us the deadline…”, Priya starts to say. You say, “Oh, so that was moved up? They always…” before your brain catches up with your mouth.
Stop right there, even in the middle of a word. Don’t continue your thought, because that only stretches the interruption. Keep the repair short so she can get straight back in:
Sorry, I cut you off. You were saying they told you the deadline?
Then just stop speaking and let her take it. That is all you have to do. The second half of the line above does most of the work, because it reminds her exactly where she left off.
You don’t need to finish your sentence before you apologize for it. Stop mid-word, say sorry once, and hand back the last thing they said.
Skip the explanation. Each of these excuses turns the repair into a moment about you:
- The excitement excuse. “I was just so excited to jump in” makes Priya reassure you while she’s in the middle of her own story.
- The already-knew-it. “I already knew that” tells her the rest of her sentence wasn’t worth hearing.
- The agreement defense. “I only did it because I agree” quietly turns her point into your point.
If you want to talk about the habit itself, deal with it later, when you are calmer.
Sometimes she gives you permission to keep going with “go ahead.” You can still offer her the floor once:
I can wait. Did you want to finish your point first?
If she says it’s really OK to continue, be brief and return to her unfinished thought before you move on to anything new.
After you say sorry and hand it back
She picks up where she left off
Listen to the end of her point. Hold your own point until she has finished.
She says “go ahead”
Offer once to wait. If she insists, say your bit in a sentence or two, then ask about the deadline she was describing.
She sounds flatter or goes quiet
Ask one open question about what she was saying and leave real room for the answer.
You cut in again in the same conversation
Use the same repair at the same length. No extra speech about how bad you are at this.
If you were so busy waiting to talk that you lost the thread completely, see also what to say when you realize you weren’t listening.
Why do I interrupt when I’m excited or disagree?
Priya mentions the overnight train she took to her sister’s last weekend, and your whole body leans forward. You’re excited because it’s a train you’ve taken.
In fact, you have some strong feelings about the bunks on that very train.
How you handle the urge to cut in will depend on the underlying reason you want to cut in:
- When you’re excited: Be interested and show it with your face, nod and smile, and leave her sentence alone. After she finishes, add something like “The overnight train sounds fun. What was that like for you?”
- When you disagree: Listen long enough to be able to rephrase her statement fairly before you start to disagree with it. You can still listen fully to her and disagree with her.
- When you’re scared you’ll forget: Write one keyword while in a meeting and then go back to the speaker. One word. Nobody asked you to write minutes for that meeting after all.
- When it’s a casual chat: Hold on to the topic but let the exact words go by. If the topic completely disappears from your mind, then most likely it wasn’t that urgent, and you don’t owe the room every idea you have on it.
Here’s how the disagreement version played out at the next Monday’s planning meeting, which you both sit in. Priya suggested the report go out on Friday, and you let her make her whole case before answering:
I understand why you’d prefer Friday. My concern is that we won’t have the figures until Monday. Can we work around that?
That first sentence acknowledges her entire point before you address your concern, which makes the concern easier to take. There’s more on how to disagree with a coworker in a meeting.
How do you stop interrupting without becoming too quiet?
A communication textbook hosted by the University of Minnesota draws a line between supportive comments that overlap and interruptions meant to take over the conversation.3 Your “oh no” while Priya describes the late files is the supportive kind.
So this doesn’t mean policing every small sound you make. Rather, keep checking whether the other person still has room to speak. Small goals are the best, much better than a vow of silence:
- One full story. Allow Priya to tell one full story before you begin to tell your own.
- The instant stop. Stop speaking the instant you realize you are interrupting, even in mid-word.
You could also ask someone you trust for a simple cue to use when you slip. With Priya, this might be:
I’m working on not cutting in. If I do it, could you say “let me finish”? I’ll stop and listen.
Afterwards, look back at one moment of the conversation to reflect on. It’ll probably replay on its own anyway, likely while you’re driving home.
If you slipped, find the spot where the pause belonged and leave it at that. One missed beat is unlikely to ruin the whole conversation.
And be aware of the tendency to overcompensate by asking every question yourself. If that happens, see how to keep a conversation balanced when you ask every question.
Practice the pause
Open Quippy and practice the exact moment with a conversation partner: let them finish one full thought, wait one beat, then ask a follow-up about something they actually said.