The power of saying ‘no’
Define your priorities, screen our distractions and know what’s worth fighting for.
YOU know the feeling you get when your friends try to drag you out? You want to see them but you know that would mean putting your work on “pause” mode. You convince yourself that a couple of hours won’t hurt. You’ll just finish it later. But two hours become almost four, and when you return home, the last thing you want to do is work because it’s already so late.
You assure yourself that you will wake up early in the morning to finish it off. The next day, your alarm is on snooze and you have trouble waking up so you never get round to finishing that task.
So what happens? New work comes your way and you struggle to give it 100% because you are still trying to cut through all your “old” work.
Does any of this sound familiar? As work starts to pile up, you feel overwhelmed as deadlines draw closer and it becomes challenging to be fully present when you have all this work hanging over your head as “unfinished business”.
Looking back, you regret the impulsive decisions you made during the week that cost you your sleep and precious time.
The trick is to learn to say “no”. When someone invites you to a party and your mind is impulsively saying “yes” but your body is saying “no”, listen to your body.
If you know you have to be up early, and you’re already tired, it’s a strong indicator that you will wake up feeling not refreshed.
If you keep doing this to yourself, physical strain will meet mental fatigue. It is just a matter of time before your work suffers too. Remember that deadlines do not move for us. They just keep moving closer, so do yourself a favour and tackle whatever is coming your way head-on rather than putting it aside.
I’m currently writing a book on wellness for the MPH Group and I have learnt the hard way that the only way I am ever going to finish it is by learning to say “no” to distractions or anything frivolous I have absolutely no time for right now.
It’s all about knowing what your priorities are. It may even help to write them down in order of importance because there’s something satisfying about crossing them off on your “to-do” list.
Every time I finish a chapter for instance, I get this wonderful feeling of accomplishment that I am one step closer to finishing my book.
Once you know what your priorities are, work on what’s most important or urgent, rather than letting everything pile up.
Screening out distractions is easier said than done and we surely don’t want to let our friends down. So pick and choose what is vital, and let go of the rest so that you do not overload yourself with appointments.
These appointments also include work meetings that you feel may be time-wasters. You cannot afford to agree to meetings because you feel obligated to say “yes”.
If you find yourself struggling to say “no” to someone, then release any sentimentality about the situation and just say “no”. When you keep a meeting out of obligation, you are not just wasting your time, you’re wasting someone else’s as well.
Have you noticed how a 3pm meeting outside the office combined with travel time and traffic, to and fro, can wipe out almost the entire afternoon?
Time is precious and our weekends are a classic case in point, especially for the workaholics who need to slow down or stop and smell the roses.
Respect your weekends and the quality time you may not have during the week to do the things you really want to do or see the people you want to see. Prioritise these.
A father who is perpetually on the move may need to know when to say “no” to a proposed meeting or ask if it can be rescheduled, so that he can be present for his child’s first recital.
There are some things clearly worth fighting for and only you will know the difference between sticking to an appointment to “give face” versus the ones you would genuinely show up to, in a heartbeat.
This is not rocket science. We just need to pay more attention to our priorities and our tired bodies, including our gut instincts.
As much as we want to say “yes”, we might be far more empowered and less burdened when we say “no”.
Recently, my production house, kyanite.tv, turned down a job which was worth a lot of money. However, when the team evaluated how long it would take to get off the ground, with all the manpower it required in a format no one seemed passionate about, a decision was made to not go ahead with it.
In business, time is money. Sometimes saying “no” is essential to respect your own time and space.
~Info courtesy of The Star~
