“No” is a decision. “Yes” is a responsibility

Not performing something at all will constantly be faster than actually performing it. The same principle exercises in other areas of life.

The motive is not inclined towards never attending another meeting, but the truth is that we say tend to say yes to innumerable things we don’t actually want to do. Is it not so? Aren’t there many meetings held that don’t really need to be held? There is a lot of code written that could be deleted.

How often do people ask you to do something and you just reply, “Sure thing.” Can I be honest here? I myself keep committing the same blunder again and again, and again! I can barely type anything apart from “Yes Sure.” And days later, you’re devastated by how much is on your to-do list. We become frustrated by our agreements even though we were the ones who said yes to them in the first place.

It’s always worth asking if things are even required. Many of them are not, and a simple “no” will be more creative than whatever work the most proficient person can excel at.

But have you ever thought that if the benefits of saying no are so obvious, then why do we say yes anyway? That too so often?

Here’s Why We Say Yes

We acknowledge several requests not only because we are willing to do them but also because we do not want to be seen as unhelpful, someone with a know-it-all attitude, and especially rude. More often, you ought to care for saying no to someone you will interact with again, in the future—your co-worker, your spouse, your friends and your family. Relatable much?

Saying straight no to these people can be particularly tough because we like them or want to support them. Collaborating with others is a crucial aspect of life, you see. The thought of weakening the relationship dominates the commitment of our energy and time.

For this reason, it can be helpful to be considered in your response. Do whatever favours you can, and be warm-hearted and direct when you have to say no.

But even after we have regarded these social considerations, many of us still seem to do a poor job of handling the settlement between yes and no. We find ourselves over-pledged to things that don’t purposely improve or encourage those around us, and certainly don’t improve our own lives as well.

Perhaps one concern is how we perceive the meaning of yes and no.

The Difference Between Yes and No

The words “yes” and “no” get used in contrast to each other so frequently that it feels like they carry equal weight in conversation. In reality, they are not just opposite in meaning, but of completely unlike magnitudes in responsibilities.

When you say no, you are only saying no to one option. When you say yes, you are saying no to every other option.

I like how the economist Tim Harford put it, “Every time we say yes to a request, we are also saying no to anything else we might accomplish with the time.” Once you have committed to something, you have already decided how that future block of time will be spent. Makes me wonder!

No is a decision. Yes is a responsibility.

The Role of No

Saying no, at times is considered as a luxury that only those in power can afford. And it is true to an extent: turning down opportunities is easier when you can fall back on the safety net boosted by power, money, and authority. But it is again true that saying no is barely a privilege reserved for the successful among us. It is also a strategy that can help you become successful.

Saying no is an important skill to develop at any stage of your career because it retains the most important asset in life: Your Time.

You need to say no to whatever isn’t leading you toward your goals. You need to say no to distractions. Nobody epitomized this idea better than Steve Jobs, who said, “People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully.”

There is an important balance to maintain here. Saying no doesn’t mean you’ll never do anything interesting or innovative or spontaneous. It just means that you say yes in a focused way. Once you have knocked out the distractions, it can make sense to say yes to any opportunity that could potentially move you in the right direction. You may have to try many things to discover what works and what you enjoy. This period of exploration can be particularly important at the beginning of a project, job, or career.

Upgrading Your No

Over time, as you continue to improve and succeed, your strategy needs to change.

The opportunity cost of your time increases as you become more successful. At first, you just eliminate the obvious distractions and explore the rest. As your skills improve and you learn to separate what works from what doesn’t, you have to continually increase your threshold for saying yes.

You still need to say no to distractions, but you also need to learn to say no to opportunities that were previously good uses of time, so you can make space for great uses of time. It’s a good problem to have, but it can be a tough skill to master.

In other words, you have to upgrade your “no’s” over time.

Upgrading your no doesn’t mean you’ll never say yes. It just means you default to saying no and only say yes when it really makes sense. To quote the investor Brent Beshore, “Saying no is so powerful because it preserves the opportunity to say yes.”

The general trend seems to be something like this: If you can learn to say no to bad distractions, then eventually you’ll earn the right to say no to good opportunities.

How to Say No

Most of us are probably too quick to say yes and too slow to say no. It’s worth asking yourself where you fall on that spectrum.

If an opportunity is exciting enough to drop whatever you’re doing right now, then it’s a yes. If it’s not, then perhaps you should think twice.

This is similar to the well-known “Hell Yeah or No” method from Derek Sivers. If someone asks you to do something and your first reaction is “Hell Yeah!”, then do it. If it doesn’t excite you, then say no.

It’s impossible to remember to ask yourself these questions each time you face a decision, but it’s still a useful exercise to revisit from time to time. Saying no can be difficult, but it is often easier than the alternative.

What is true about health is also true about productivity: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

The Power of No

More effort is wasted doing things that don’t matter than is wasted doing things inefficiently. And if that is the case, elimination is a more useful skill than optimization.

I am reminded of the famous Peter Drucker quote, “There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.”

Shrestha S. Purkayastha