A seven-day experiment, the awkward moments to expect, and the sentence that replaces "sorry"
Pull up your sent folder and total up every apology you've typed. Skip the ones that matter and focus on the reflexive ones: "Sorry for the lag." "Apologies for hopping in." "Sorry, may I add one thing?" Among women in senior roles across Milwaukee and beyond, that tally tends to be shocking, and very few of those apologies were for anything that truly needed forgiving.
Here's how to try it. Beginning Monday, save "sorry" for real harm: a missed deadline that cost someone something, or an error about something important. Everything else gets a substitute. Below is what usually unfolds, day by day, along with the phrasing that makes it workable.
During the first couple of days, a change in your habits becomes noticeable to you.
The first thing you catch is how often it shows up. It sneaks into your email openings, your meeting introductions, and the moment you ask something that was already settled. You'll spot roughly half of them as they happen, which is plenty to begin with.
Swap in: "Thanks for hanging in there" for "Sorry for the delay." "I'd like to add something" for "Sorry, can I just." "Here's where things stand" for "Sorry it's taken me so long."
By days 3 and 4, the new habit starts to feel awkward and unfamiliar.
Without that padding, your sentences hit with more force than you're used to. A request sounds like a request. A correction sounds like a correction. Most people quit at this stage, because the bluntness can strike them, rightly or wrongly, as impolite. It isn't. It's simply what a sentence sounds like without an apology in front of it, and your coworkers hear that from their peers all day long.
If you want a softer tone, reach for something genuine: "I appreciate you turning this around so fast" is warm and owes no apology. Write the three phrases you use most on a sticky note, paired with their replacements, and keep it near your monitor. It's unglamorous, and it helps, because the habit moves faster than your good intentions.
On day 5, colleagues across Southeast Wisconsin start responding to you in new ways.
Somewhere around Friday, responses begin to change. Replies come back quicker, and fewer people have to be walked through things you already understood. The shift is quiet, and that quietness is what matters: an apology at the front of a message asks the reader for a favor, whereas leading with the real content asks them to get something done. Some people, you may find, liked the softer wording more than the directness. That's useful information as well.
The one rule that keeps you human
Keep it friendly. Warmth is not the thing this exercise asks you to give up. What it asks you to drop is the quiet assumption that taking someone's time means you now owe them an apology. "Sorry" was doing two jobs at once. Hold on to the kindness, and let go of the apology that came with it.
When sorry is still the right word
Whenever you got something wrong and another person absorbed the cost. Offer it one time, make it complete, and explain the concrete change you intend to make. Because an apology used rarely keeps its meaning and gets heard.
Explain what happened
Carry on with the week, then send us your reflections: which moment proved hardest, what line you substituted for the apology, and how things looked by Friday in Menomonee Falls or Muskego. We'll publish the strongest accounts, with your name or without it, as the first entries in a new series of reader stories about what really happens at work across Southeast Wisconsin.
Your sent folder is where you should begin. Sorry about that.