Phone anxiety: a two-week practice plan

How the plan works

You start with a call where nobody answers back and finish with the one you have been putting off. In between, real calls alternate with practice calls, so every other day is a rehearsal.

Before each call, write one line: what do I expect to go wrong? Afterwards, write whether it did. That note is the point of the plan. After a week you will have seven predictions to compare with what happened.

The idea of working up in steps comes from exposure, which we cover with sources on the phone anxiety and ADHD page.

Week one: calls where nothing is at stake

Day 1. Call a recorded line, such as a cinema's listings or your bank's opening hours. Listen to the end and hang up.

Day 2. Practice call: book a table. Use the call at the top of this page, the app, or a friend who agrees to play the restaurant.

Day 3. Call a shop and ask what time they close. One question, one answer.

Day 4. Practice call: order food. The other side will ask you things you did not plan for, such as a name or a pickup time.

Day 5. Call a restaurant and ask whether they take bookings for six. You do not have to book.

Day 6. Practice call: book a doctor's appointment. It has more steps, and you can restart it as often as you like.

Day 7. No call. Read your six notes. Count how many of the things you expected went wrong.

Week two: calls that ask for something

Day 8. Book a real appointment you need: a haircut, the dentist, a repair.

Day 9. Practice call: return an order and ask for a refund. It has more back and forth: a reason, a process and a date for the money.

Day 10. Call a company about a bill or an order and ask one question.

Day 11. Practice call: the one you have been avoiding. In the app you can write it as your own scenario.

Day 12. Call a friend or a relative without texting first.

Day 13. Practice the avoided call again. This time let it go badly on purpose and keep going.

Day 14. Make the call.

If a day goes badly

Repeat it tomorrow. A day you have to repeat is the plan working, because it found the step that is hard for you. Moving on anyway is what makes the next step feel impossible.

If a day feels too easy, skip ahead. The order matters more than the dates.

What this plan is

It is a practice routine, made of ordinary calls. murmur is practice, not treatment, and it has not been tested in a clinical trial. If anxiety is getting in the way of your work or your daily life, talk to a doctor or a therapist.

There is more on why calls feel worse than texts on the phone anxiety page, and on work calls in phone anxiety at work.

Updated 11 November 2026.