Say No To Say Yes (Why Setting Priorities Is Essential For Attaining Your Goal)
Published August 2nd, 2007 in Work, Happiness, Success, Life, Thoughts.
Every time you say YES to something that is unimportant, you say NO to something that is important.
~ Robin Sharma
Talking with a friend the other day in regard to her work. Being the nicest girl in the office, she was constantly overwhelmed by the different requests (large and small, many trivial) from her colleagues, and felt frustrated that she did not have time to really focus on her own projects. She was particularly disappointed to learn that the senior management had taken her out from the new project team for “her hands were already too full”.
Opportunity cost
And this makes me think: We have to learn to say no. By saying so I don’t mean that we need to be selfish and only focus on ourselves. Nevertheless, since all of us just got so much time, we cannot be everything to everybody and it is realistic to set boundaries. After all, there is an opportunity cost to every decision we make. If we say ”yes” to A, then very possibly we have to say “no” to B due to time or resources constrains.
What is your priorities?
Beware that sometimes we don’t even make our decisions consciously. We can get so busy that all we do is killing off the tasks in hand, without paying attention to why we have got ourselves into the game at first place, and whether those are the tasks that align with what we ultimately want in life.
How sad that one day we reach the top only to realise that we have climbed the wrong mountain?
And this reminds me the “put in the big rock first” story Stephen Covey tells in “First thing first“. If we want to fill a jar with rocks, we would have to put in the big rock first. If we put the gravel and sand in first, there will never be place for the big rocks.
What are the big rocks of your life? Your family/career/health/relationship? Have you been pre-occuiped with the daily nitty-gritty that you forget the whole picture? Ask yourself, “what is important to me?” Answer the question with all honesty and you will know how to priorities.
Saying no…
In order to be able to say YES to your big rocks, you may need to say NO to:
- Other people’s expectations on you.
- Other people’s urgent matters that do not align with your goals.
- Time spent on negative activities including gossiping, complaining, blaming your parents, the society, the government, your boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife…
- Tasks that can be outsourced to other people…
How about you? What do you need to say NO to?
Related posts:
- A Strategy for Happiness And Efficiency
- A Half Conscious Life?
- 12 Important Questions To Ask In Regard To Your Work
- Release The Break
Popularity: 10% [?]
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
My StumbleUpon Page
Hey Shine, after read your comment on my site I decided to stop by. I remember seeing a link here from Problogger that I didn’t get to yet, so I’m hitting 2 birds with one stone. I can see how our two posts go together and I like th point you made. Have you read “The 4-Hour Work Week”, it has a part that says you have to say NO to requests. I don’t know if I’d recommend the book, I’ve only skimmed it and my mom says it’s very negative, although I haven’t seen anything like that so far.
What are the big rocks of your life? No (jokingly)… that is not worded right… it’s marbles and your juggling them. http://ledgerpad.ath.cx/life/life-is-a-game, this post has another way of putting it. It’s has a great quote from Suzanne’s Diary for Nicholas (I haven’t read the book though.) I didn’t want to put it here because it takes up a lot of space.
Thanks for the comment on my site and this post!
Hi there Dan, welcome to Shine! Yes, marbles - I really like this word… And I really like your post which lead me to think deeper about the topic.
Interesting that you mention the 4-Hour Work Week for I just started reading it this morning (up to p. 36), keep noding my head (and laughing all the way…). So far I don’t think it’s negative - I think Tim the author is a really smart guy in implementing the 80/20 rule that you can basically achieve more by focusing on the essential and leveraging your efforts. We may talk more about that when I finish it but so far I think he has some points. One thing that I really share is that being locked to the desk during the best years of our lives may not be the best / only way we can live our lives. We may have to make some choices, take some risks and change some habits though if we don’t follow the mainstream.
So much for now. Really nice meeting you and I will visit often. Nice weekend.
Hi Shine
Another excellent article. Thanks.
I particularly like the opportunity cost part. There is only so much we can fit into a life and we’re crazy to fill it up by saying Yes to things that are unimportant.
Last week I published an article called “How to Say No”, which works in well with yours. Maybe you’d be interested in checking it out?
http://www.lifegoalaction.com/how-to-say-no/
Thanks
Tom
Never heard of it before, but after reading this can say with assurance, that it’s a point of great interest and fun for me