Note to self, do less, better

Hi, my name is Tom and I’m a yes-oholic —

A yes-oholic is a common condition of entrepreneurs who feel the need to rise to every challenge they face.

Oh, did I forget to mention an entrepreneur must be a part of every decision made. An entrepreneur needs to attend all events. We also know the dangers and signals that all bad things will happen if an entrepreneur doesn’t pretty much agree to do everything that comes their way.

But don’t worry, we’re not alone. In fact most people are much more comfortable saying “yes” when asked to do something than “no” for many reasons, many of which you can read about here.

The main being that as humans we have a desire to please, we fear letting others down, and we often over estimate our own ability to deliver.

There’s nothing wrong in principle with saying yes, to a certain point, but ultimately we are all restricted by the number of ours in a day and committing to too much can have some serious consequences.

First and foremost it can lead to a large level of stress, not just with how much needs to be done but also when we ultimately fail to deliver and everything and beat ourselves up over it.

Beyond personal, as an entrepreneur committing to too much can cause the quality of what we do to go down while not delivering can seriously impact customer relations while both of these can have a strong negative impact on brand and reputation.

I fear sometimes that saying yes leads to a nasty spiral of continuing to say yes, feeling even more stressed, delivering even less, and just repeating in an effort to make up for those yeses that went wrong. So the real question is how to you stop this spiral and how do you manage all of those things that come your way?

Well, the way I’ve been getting out of the hole I dug is in making “No” my favorite answer.

I’ve tried various to-do list applications, I’ve tried calendar apps, ai virtual assistants, you name it, I’ve tried it.

It all works great in allowing you to bend over backwards and cram your schedule full of meetings, tasks, and reminders of reminders of reminders…You get the picture.

But, ultimately, we fail the apps, not the other way around. We’re the ones forcing them to chop meetings to 23 minutes, to reply to people with cardboard cutout responses, and if they were real assistants, they’d probably quit after a week.

So, I’ve started to think about answering yes in this way and it’s really helped me.

For each yes I say, the value of every other yes that I have said goes down because every other yes will have less time for me to give to it.

I know it’s not exactly that simple as all tasks require different levels of effort. Simplifying the questions of when to say yes and when not to say yes has had an incredible impact on not just the quality of the work that I am producing but also the level of stress I feel.

Less over-committed = less stress.

I’m actually getting more done now that I’m doing less and I feel so much better about what I’m doing.

And, the biggest unexpected outcome I’ve achieved is that I feel people respect me more because I am able to say no.

Sure, there are a few people who are genuinely annoyed that you’ve not agreeing to whatever it is they want. But realizing that this is merely a kid stomping his foot that he didn’t get to go out and play.

At the end of the day the small hit you take for telling coworkers, friends, family or anyone — up front — that you are unable to do what they are asking, saves you a huge hassle later.

No more excuses. No more explaining why something was not done. No more coming in late with the project. Then you don’t get thanked for your efforts because the person is aggravated that you didn’t do the favor for them on their expected timetable.

And worse — you are disappointed in yourself.

CAUTION: There may even be a little jealousy about your new super human powers.

So I know it’s hard but next chance you get, just say “no.” Then do it again, and again, to all of those things that aren’t really worth your time.

You can thank me later.

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