Use your phone to make phone calls.

You can write emails, play video games, shoot a movie, take pictures, read a book, listen to music, tweet, see what your friends are doing, start your microwave oven, lock your car and much more with your smart phone. When was the last time you used your phone to make phone calls? Are there any reasons at all to use this little feature of your phone? Turns out it is the one thing that actually matters.

Right in the palm of our hand we have a device that is more powerful than the one that was used to send men on the moon. The amount of stuff you can do with it can be overwhelming. There is no excuse to waste a single minute of your day. The moment you have a free time, you can read a book, listen to music, or watch cat videos. Every once in a while, and it is becoming even more rare, you get a phone call. Those people that just won't send you a text message, they rather call and use your valuable time.

We are getting used to sending a text message instead of making a call. I too find myself getting frustrated when I see someone is calling me. However I think this frustration is a good thing; it shows that I am avoiding direct confrontation and I need to do something about it. With a text message you have enough time to reply to a message, there is no pressure. You can actually ignore it all together if you want. With a call, a 2 second silence can even be awkward. So you are forced to constantly talk. And for us shy programmers this can be a difficult, but a good exercise nevertheless.

We live in an instant gratification word yet we have problem directly communicating, and any opportunity to avoid communication is well embraced (hence why Internet comments are very popular).

The reason we don't like phone calls is because we are afraid; we don't want to be put on the spot. Maybe we should be on the spot. It's not easy but the frustration you get when you see the phone ringing is there for a reason. Whether it be lack of confidence or courage, or signs of procrastination, it means there is something that need to change.

Make phone calls and put yourself in the spot. If you are uncomfortable you are probably doing the right thing.

Update:

I find this somewhat relevant.