How do I say no without wrecking things
Run every current commitment through one test, then hold the three-things discipline.
Leaders eager to make a difference end up buried in meetings, emails, and commitments, and past a certain point that enthusiasm turns counterproductive. The more directions you are pulled in, the less any single one of them actually gets from you.
Greg McKeown's Essentialism puts it in its most useful form. If you do not prioritize your own life, someone else will prioritize it for you. His test collapses the ambiguity people hide in: if it is not a clear yes, it is a clear no. No maybe.
Saying no is hard because it usually costs some popularity, and popularity is a very available currency compared to respect. That is the real difficulty, and naming it helps more than pretending the discomfort is irrational.
What you get
- A filter table with a clear-yes checkbox and a column for whose priority it actually is
- The three-things-today discipline, and why doing it visibly matters more than doing it well
- The cost most people miss, which is attention rather than calendar time
Where should we send it?
One email with the worksheet. You can unsubscribe from anything else in one click.
On its way
Check your inbox. If it has not landed in a minute or two, look in promotions or spam, and add sam@startuppatterns.com to your contacts so the rest arrive.
Adapted from the Mindfulness chapter of The Mindful Product Company by Sam McAfee.