Before you start

This is a short book and you can read it in two or three sittings. It's about one habit. Someone is talking to you, and a few sentences in you've worked out what you're going to say back. It might be a piece of advice, a story of your own, a reassurance or a point of disagreement. From then on, part of your attention is on holding your reply ready and watching for a gap to put it in. You hear the rest of what they say as a sort of background. When the gap comes, you speak. And over the years, without anyone saying why, people have started telling you less.

I'm going to argue three things. The first is that preparing your reply while the other person is still talking is normal. Researchers who time conversations have shown that everyone has to do some of it, because the gaps between turns are too short to allow anything else. The habit is an excess of something necessary. The second is that the excess costs more than it seems to. You miss the end of what people say, and the end is usually where the point is. Your replies answer what they said first and not what they said last. They often can't tell in the moment that you've drifted, but they do register how your replies land, and over time they tell you less. The third is practical. You listen to the end, take a beat, and make your first response about what they just said. Chapters 12 to 14 cover how.

Nothing in this book asks you to become a silent nodder or to stop contributing. Good conversation needs your stories, your views and sometimes your advice. The argument is about when they arrive and what they displace. Nothing here asks you to become anybody's therapist either.

Three cautions.

If you often mishear people, or find you're asking them to repeat themselves, that may be hearing and not listening. The NHS advice is to see a GP if you have problems with your hearing, because the cause may be easily treated.

If you've always found it hard to stay with what people are saying, across all kinds of conversation, and you're also easily distracted and restless in the rest of your life, this may be more than a habit. The NHS lists being very talkative or interrupting conversations among the signs of ADHD in adults. A GP is the place to start. Chapter 15 says a little more.

And if the reason you're only half there in conversations is that you're exhausted, low or preoccupied with something serious, be gentle with yourself. When most of your attention is taken up by a worry, there's less left for other people, and that's a matter for a different book.

The notes at the back give my sources and their limits. Where I'm giving my own reasoning and not a finding, I'll say so.