The decision

Here's the rule, and it's one sentence. When someone's clumsy act stings, I name three causes that need no malice before I settle on one that does, and if it matters I ask them.

Everything else in the book hangs off that. The three causes return the charge to the status of a guess. The asking replaces guessing with knowing, in the cases where knowing matters. And the objection, when one is needed, goes to the act and not the motive, which is covered by the same sentence, because you can't object to a motive you've agreed to treat as a guess.

Three when-then plans, which are the form that research on intentions says works best, a specific cue paired with a specific action. When I notice the sentence "they did that because" forming, then I say three other causes before I finish it. When a slip has stayed with me past the end of the day, then I ask the person a plain question tomorrow, or I drop it, and I don't carry it into a third day. When I need to raise something, then I name the act and what I'd like instead, and I leave the motive out of the sentence.

What to expect. The first week, you'll catch about half the charges, and mostly after they've set, and you'll do the three causes late. That's fine. The second week you'll start catching them earlier, and you'll notice the charges are getting quieter, not because you've argued them down but because they've stopped being the only sentence. Around then you'll ask a plain question for the first time and get a Tuesday back, and the Tuesday will do more than any chapter here, because it'll be yours. You won't stop charging. Nobody does. You'll stop believing the charge on arrival, and that's the whole change.

You'll also find that the world gets less hostile, quickly, and that nothing in the world has changed. That's my expectation and not a finding, but it's the natural result of a hundred small verdicts a month being downgraded to guesses. The people were always mostly busy. You're just seeing it now.