Not a very positive sentiment for a Tuesday morning, but it is raining outside, and we have run out of the nice cereal in the purple packet. Pessimism aside however, those two letters could be one of the most powerful productivity tools you have. No really.
Let me demonstrate what I mean with a slightly glib, moderately vague, and wholly true statement:
You spend every minute of your day doing things you said “yes” to.
Don’t look at me like that – it is true. You may not have physically uttered the word “yes”, but you certainly didn’t politely and assertively say “no”. You agreed to eat you breakfast, get on the bus, say hello to that girl from accounts, ignore the guy from sales, phone those customers, skip lunch, and stay late to help your boss out.
You could have said ‘no’ to any one of those things – I am not saying there wouldn’t be any consequences, but you still could have said ‘no’ and not done them. But the thing is that most of are passengers in our own life – a head-down-mouth-shut mentality. Don’t rock the boat. Far be it for me to suggest this is a bad way of living your life, but it really is a bad way of living your life. You need to say ‘no’ more. A lot more.
In fact, you need ‘no’ to be your default answer for everything. It doesn’t mean that you are going to do nothing, it just means that you should start at nothing, then only add the things to your life and schedule that you want to do.
It takes a bit of practice, and wordsmanship, but you end up changing conversations like this:
BOSS: I need a report on widgets by this afternoon
YOU: Okay
*Panics all afternoon, does poor job of report, gets home late*
To conversations like this:
BOSS: I need a report on widgets by this afternoon
YOU: Great – although I can do a summary for this afternoon, I’d be able to get you a full report by lunch tomorrow
BOSS: I need a report on widgets by this afternoon
YOU: Okay, I’ll get you the best I can, and can always add in further stuff tomorrow if document is still available
BOSS: Fine
*Boss has still persuaded you to do the work, but by saying ‘no’ as first you have prepared him for a half-arsed draft version this afternoon, and left the door open for you to make sure the document is a good one later*
Okay, so that was a bit contrived. Well, I say contrived but that is the actual conversation I had with my Boss yesterday. When I gave him the rough-and-ready document in the afternoon he actually thanked me for clearing my diary to get the thing done.
I know what you’re thinking – you’d never get away with that with your Boss. But the thing is, that no one else gets away with it with my Boss – because no one else tries to say anything other than ‘no’. It is all about taking what you do into your own hands.
Action points:
- Watch during the day for those moments when you are saying ‘yes’ to something without realising
- Pick a couple of easier, less confrontational moments to start saying ‘no’;
- Begin to say ‘no’ more;
- Make ‘no’ your default; and
- Life a long and happy life.
