Will Hardison

Learn To Say No

A lot of my recent blog articles have been inspired by the book “Rework” written by Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson, the founders of 37Signals. One of their mini-chapters hits on the topic of learning how to say no. While reading this, it was like getting sucker punched in the gut. The entire chapter was written entirely for me. It’s like they knew me without ever meeting me.

The chapter explains:

That it is so easy to say yes. Yes to a short deadline, yes to a new feature, yes to one more round of revisions on a logo, yes to a meeting you just really don’t want to go to, yes to answering the phone after 5pm, yes to lowering your proposal. It wont be long before the pile of items you said yes to will bury the work you should actually be doing. Have you ever had that feeling? The feeling of “I should really be doing X but I’m stuck on doing A through W”

We as humans, employees, and business owners tend to over commit. You know why? Because saying “No” is much more difficult than saying “Yes”. Why is that? Because we hate confrontation. Saying no means we’ll have to more than likely explain why and it could become uncomfortable. But do you know what’s worse? Dragging a project out, underperforming, or getting irritated because you’re doing something you just flat out don’t want to do. How many clients do you think your current client is going to send you if your work is poor?

The book gives the example of breaking up a relationship. Sure its really tough, and one person is probably going to cry, but it’s better to end the relationship and cry for a day or two than to live out an unhappy relationship for 50 more years.

I encourage everyone out there to learn how to say “No”. You’ll respect yourself more, your clients will respect you more, and you’ll find yourself a little less stressed with a little bit more free time. Now you’ll have time to work on things that really matter.

Tags: 37signals, Business, productivity, Rework, Saying No