3pm or 4pm? Still or sparking?

The way a question is phrased contains information.

A waiter asks “still or sparkling?”, because it reduces the number of decisions you have to make. You have to put some effort in to say “tap is fine”.

When someone offers to meet you tomorrow afternoon, and they ask “3pm or 4pm?”, they’re implying those are the times which suit them best. It gives you an easy choice. Because although it’s fine to reply with “how about 2:30pm?”, the effort it takes to do so is more than replying with “3pm is great”.

If you think this is overanalysing, you might even do it without knowing.

Have you ever asked your friend how they project they were working on is going? Even though you know they haven’t made much progress on it, you still ask. Because “how’s your project going?” is better than “why haven’t you done anything on your project?”. Though, the closer the friend, the more you’ll probably (and should) lean towards the latter. After all, what are friends for?

Being aware of questions containing answers embedded in them helps you not only give better answers but ask better questions. If you’re after real answers, perhaps you should be careful of how you ask the question. In court they call this leading the witness.

The same goes for yourself.

When you’re thinking to yourself, asking questions of life, notice how the question gets asked. You’ll be surprised how much the answer is already there.