Yeah. I am suggesting this is a habit you form now so that you don’t find yourself answering a phone when you are hanging at home alone in your retirement.
Many of us already have developed this habit because we know how many of the calls that look local are just cloaked telemarketers selling us an extended warranty on a car, offering us a loan, or threatening police action if we don’t return their call immediately.
However, for the adults I work with who are aging in place and often live alone, the ringing phone is a siren call and they immediately jump up to answer it even if they are in the middle of a conversation.
Legitimate callers trying to reach you will leave a message so you can decide if you want to call them back.
For those of you assisting a loved one, I recommend you implement a call screening service like NoMoRobo. It won’t catch them all, so you can also put some reminders by the phone that I offered in my earlier post on The Allure of a Ringing Phone.
These aren’t all hard habits to form, but what you do now can last you a lifetime. Proposed.