Saying no

I’ve been thinking a lot about the book, Essentialism, lately.

Thanks to a back-and-forth conversation with Saadia Carbis on Async (a podcast I highly recommend checking out), I’ve been re-evaluating what things in my life I should be saying no to so that I can have a better yes for the right things.

The problem, of course, is that I have so many things I love to do and want to be part of, and it’s hard to say no.

Saying yes is easy until you’ve agreed to far too many things and find yourself going a millimeter an hour in a million different directions all at once (a fantastic line from the Essentialism).

Life is long. Sometimes it doesn’t feel that way, it seems we’re running out of time.

But really, there are so many opportunities to do what we want, just not all at the same time. There’s periods where we can and should say yes, but at other times it’s ok to say no and walk away. By recognizing the ebb and flow of what we can do, we have a chance at giving it our all when the right time comes. Then we can truly say yes and embrace the thing we want with enthusiasm.

Half-hearted acceptance of a project we agreed to long in the past isn’t the best way to live life. Does that mean we should renege on promises and be lackadaisical about commitments? Not at all. In fact, we should be even more careful about what we agree to because of how much our word means.

Still, there are times when we’ve overcommitted and the only course forward is to step back, apologize where necessary, and say no.

Recently, thanks to the timely advice from my wife, I said no to a big thing. It’s something I wanted to do and was excited about—but logistics had changed enough that it wasn’t really set up for success in the way we all wanted. I was still willing to go forward, but realized in the back of my mind it wouldn’t be to the level of quality that we expected.

So, I took a moment to re-evaluate the decision. Even though the title of this post is saying no, I don’t think about yes and no in such blunt terms. I didn’t just tell the team that I was done and tough luck. Instead, we talked it through and I asked a few questions to see if it still made sense. I was willing to go forward, but worried it wouldn’t be effective. The answer we came up with together was no, and as soon as we made that decision, it felt right.

Does that mean the decision is universally accepted and appreciated? Not always. But in this case, it means being able to re-evaluate my planned time and push energy toward the areas where I know they’ll be most useful. Or, just maybe, take that time to rest.

Every thing we say yes to adds cognitive load to our lives.

It’s like adding one more meeting to your calendar at the end of the day. You could take that meeting, and sometimes you should. But that extra little bit of stress will bug you all throughout the day. Every time you check your schedule or look at the time, you’re reminded of that event looming. Sometimes, just canceling helps to give wiggle room to your day and remove the stress you've been feeling.

And then, as I’ve often found, looking ahead toward an open evening, or just having the knowledge that your todo list has shrunk down, opens up possibilities of time and space.

Some of my best periods of ideation and curiosity have come from time to just think, play with an idea, and be in a space of creativity. Don't get me wrong, forced constraints are a good thing in creative spaces. I’d probably never ship or get anything done if I didn’t have built in deadlines and mechanisms for actually getting something out into the world—like this blog where I have an internal commtiment to write. But still, sometimes having more openness in our lives creates room for possibilities, and in that space are all the things we’d have missed. Things worth digging up and exploring.

It’s a thing I must constantly remind myself. Saying no means opening up the possibility of a better yes. That doesn’t mean the thing you turned down was wrong or bad, but it may not have been the thing that you could have tackled with true enthusiasm and care.