It’s 5:30 PM as a write this, and so far today I have received 17 different fully formed “opportunities” for me to give my time, influence or social capital away (for free, naturally). Throw in a looming mountain of laundry and an inconveniently timed dead car battery and it all adds up to the feeling my husband and I call, “pecked to death by ducks.”
Many of the things people want me to support I would totally do…if there were more of me to go around. Make me a couple EricaBots (sorry, I’m re-watching Buffy on Netflix, which you should totally do too.) and I’d be there for everything. Or, you know, a reasonable mechanical facsimile of me would be.
But as long as it’s just me and the day only has those pesky 24 hours, my vocabulary must by necessity be very similar to a 2-year-old: “No, no, no.”
Different people thrive on different levels of activity, but there is no faster way to exhaust yourself than to consistently overbook your time. It took me a rough couple of years — starting with a car-totalling accident, peaking with some scary, fucked-up eye surgery, and eventually leading to antidepressants — for me to really internalize this:
It is perfectly okay to do less, and to say no
politely, promptly and unambiguously.
In fact, saying no is more than okay. It’s liberating. It’s essential.
In a fast moving age where everyone wants a piece of your time, being able to say no to the stuff around the edges frees you to say yes – enthusiastically and wholeheartedly – to the important core of your life.
How to Say No
1. Be Prompt
The person trying to engage your time, money or expertise will appreciate being able to move on to the next person on their list and you won’t have the lingering feeling of “needing to get back to so-and-so” hanging over you. Prompt nos discourage attempts at “time negotiation” on the part of the asker, too.
2. Be Clear
Do not hem or haw or say you’ll think about it or you’re working on it. Default to no and save everyone time. If you change your mind later it’s almost assured that you can step in and add your help to the effort. In the meantime, let the planners or recruiters move on with their job by being clear in your decline.
A clear no is far more polite than a halfhearted, unmeant maybe. Unless you really need time to think about a big decision, do not say, “Let me get back to you.” That just invites a lot of time-wasting back-and-forth, and gives pushy people an opening to keep asking.
3. Don’t Offer Explanations
You don’t have to. If you are in the habit of excusing your nos with long explanations by saying, “Oh, I would, but I already agreed to blah blah blah,” or, “Gee, I’d really love to but that’s the day I wax my toes,” stop it. Just stop it. You are a responsible grown-up. You do not owe anyone outside your boss and your family an explanation for how you prioritize your time.
Polite, Unambiguous Nos Are Best
As long as you are making statements that are about you and not the asker, a polite “no” is not rude and there’s no need to feel guilty for drawing healthy boundaries.
Try These:
- “I’m not able to commit to that right now.”
- “I’m sorry I can’t take that on.”
- “I know I’ve managed that in the past, but my schedule has changed and I won’t be able to this time.”
- “That’s not in our family’s budget at the moment.”
- “That time is already allocated.” It doesn’t matter if you’ve allocated that time to sleeping, seeing your kid at the dinner table, or just catching up on old movies with a friend. You can allocate your time as you need to for the good of your sanity and home.
Nos In The Family
Parents, this goes for kids, too. We all want the best for our little ones, and I think it’s awesome for kids to have a full, well-rounded exposure to multiple sports, languages, musical endeavors and the like, and if your high schooler is in a varsity sport or something, then it’s great that she’s learning about the commitment level that takes.
But I’m periodically shocked by the number of activities some of my suburban peer families engage in every day. I’m not sure when it became normal for young kids to participate in two or three after school activities every single day, but I know that accommodating that kind of schedule can be difficult for the entire family. If that kind of busy schedule isn’t appropriate for your family’s values, time or financial budget, you can limit it.
Older kids can be part of this decision making. For example, you can say: “I’m in a position to pay for one after school activity this quarter. I’ll support you in whichever one you choose. Let me know.” With that, you’ve empowered your child to prioritize their time and assess what’s really meaningful to them.
A Refresher Course on No
Even though I learned my lesson about taking on too much the hard way, I’ve found the lesson of saying no needs re-learning occasionally. I like to go big (while nearly always staying home) and my natural inclination will probably always be to bite off a bit more than I can comfortably chew. Perhaps you are like this too.
Pushing to learn more, get stronger, grow more or be a better parent or partner is pretty awesome. Taking on new challenges is wonderful – and I never want to stagnate. But my plate has been far too full for too long. I can feel it, and for me, that way lies madness.
I know it’s up to me to redefine those boundaries so I can refocus on what’s important – family, friends, my home and garden, my storytelling and teaching.
So please excuse me while I go email 17 people with a polite but confident “no.”
What can you say no to, today?
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Ah, Buffy! One of our favorites back in the day. The writing in the early seasons was fantastic. Started to lose its edge in later seasons, but one of the old good ones for sure!
Once I started back to work full-time, I said no so many times that people finally quit asking. Sad, but it was necessary for my sanity.
I wasn’t in love with the “Dawn” thing. But in re-watch it’s less irritating than I remember. I maintain that Once More With Feeling is the best piece of television ever made. 🙂
Buffy is our total comfort-food TV here too. And even the seasons I don’t think I’d like as much again (Willow’s magic “addiction”) hold up surprisingly well 😉 Sometimes we just rewatch all the Halloween episodes!
Yay, Buffy fans! We’re just at that Season 5 point where Willow is starting to get a little too into her spells, but not to the full on addiction part. I’m looking forward to “bored now” though. 🙂
I agree that “Once More With Feeling” is excellent. Classic, really. 🙂 Also, thanks for the reminder on saying no. That’s something I struggle with, so it’s nice to be reminded that it’s really okay, and not rude or selfish.
I struggle with it to. Sometimes I write posts like this to remind myself of stuff I know but need a refresher on.
Yes! I especially appreciate your steps to saying no. I would add that it might be necessary to say no repeatedly if people aren’t used to hearing it.
I had two strokes a little over two years ago. I was shocked by how many people didn’t take, “No, I can’t do that, I just had a stroke” as my final answer. Maybe the problem was that I gave an explanation, but I’m pretty sure it’s just that no one was used to me saying no. Having an air tight “excuse” made it easy for me to keep saying no until they believed me.
That period of my life taught me so much about setting boundaries, making decisions based on my own values and priorities, and not worrying so much about trying to please everyone. I now look normal and function mostly normally (I fatigue easily and am still learning bits and pieces… I recently learned to walk backwards!), but I’ve kept those lessons learned. I say no a lot. 🙂
It’s surprising to live on this side of no. Our family is so calm and content over all. We watch our friends, family, and neighbors fly around trying to be all things to all people and it looks exhausting!
The hardest part of that for me is that I now realize how little of other people’s time I really get. I might not see a “good” friend for three or four months because she’s said yes to so many things for herself and her family that she is frantically racing. We have neighbors who needed to schedule out over a week in the future to find an hour to come play with our baby chicks.
When I was doing the same crazy gerbil wheel, I didn’t really notice or care. Now that we have space in our schedules, I have to remind myself that it’s not that they are avoiding me! They just suffer from a deficiency of no. 🙂
I can’t believe people don’t just shut the hell up at “stroke.” Well, actually I can. I got asked some pretty audacious things while I was doubled over with vertigo and unable to see. And you just want to look at them and be like, “Are you fucking kidding me?” I’m sorry you are going through that.
Oh, the amount of commentary I want to add…
I see far too many people at the Corporate Day Job who I think of as “carpets” – because they’ll let anyone walk all over them. They don’t know how to say know and have been driven (usually by fear of maintaining their job) to be UNABLE to say no. So they end up hugely over-extended, often taking on work from multiple other people, none of whom have the full picture and realize how hard this person is working. And once you get the reputation of being willing to take on someone’s shit at the last minute, it never goes away…
There’s a corollary I’ve learned over years of teaching: it is vastly easier to become LESS strict than MORE so. If you start off with clear firm rules you can always make exceptions or relax occasionally. But if you start off as Mr. Friendly Teacher no one will respect you and in six weeks when everything has turned into chaos you’ll snap and try to impose Gulag-like discipline and it’ll be a struggle.
No one wants to be an asshole, but starting off a relationship with some decent clear but friendly boundaries sets up the possibility of making exceptions (“Oh, you represent a charity that helps homeless children of wounded veterans with puppies? I’ll waive my regular speaker’s fee for you.”) for genuine acts of charity, support, pay-it-forward, etc. and also makes these exceptions feel like doing A Nice Thing again rather than just another goddamn obligation.
This is a really important lesson. As an assistant, I occasionally remind my bosses, “No, thank you is a perfectly acceptable, polite response.” I don’t mind saying it for them – and, in the process have learned to say it better for myself as well. In email the rsvp is along the lines of “Thank you for inviting Hermes X of [company name] to [your specific] event on [such & such a date…so they know I’ve actually checked the calendar…it’s a really good idea to get that one right]. Unfortunately, due a prior commitment, Mr. X will not be able to attend. Thank you again for your kind consideration.
Prior commitment can be anything. I don’t specify. Could be a holiday with the kids. Could be another business meeting. Could be a commitment to not get involved in more organizations than a mortal human can be sincerely interested in at once. They don’t need to know. They really don’t. A ‘No, thank you’ is enough.
“Prior commitment can be anything. I don’t specify. Could be a holiday with the kids. Could be another business meeting. Could be a commitment to not get involved in more organizations than a mortal human can be sincerely interested in at once. They don’t need to know. They really don’t. A ‘No, thank you’ is enough.”
–> This. This exactly. ::Cheers!::
Nailed it!
I love this! My go-to NO answer is this;
“Thank you for thinking of me. It sounds like a great event/happening/etc. However, I have a previous commitment. Hope it’s a great success!”
The commitment is usually with my tub filled with Epsom salts and drops of essential oil (bergamot in fact!) or it’s with the sofa, my husband, a huge bowl of popcorn and the next episode of House of Cards.
The point, as you made, is that the time is mine and I get to decide how to spend it.
I do not want to be one of those ‘put-upon’ people who continually wring their hands and bemoan how busy they are. It’s a societal sickness. I really believe that.
Everyone’s out-bragging how busy they are while they speed to the bottom of the swirling bowl. I have completely lost interest in that game.
Thanks for a great post.
I wonder why competitive busy-ness is such a thing in modern American culture? I don’t think it’s healthy. I worry for High Schoolers – have you seen the work load a high schooler is expected to maintain to get into a “good” college? Perfect GPA, plus music and sports, at least one foreign language, volunteer experience and more – all at once. No wonder our kids are exhausted.
Edit: “busyness” when I originally wrote it autocorrected to business. That’s kinda telling, isn’t it?
Competitive busy-ness is the WORST. I’ve been trying to stop saying “Oh, busy, you know” when people ask how I am… not only is it like a humble-braggy kind of thing but it’s also freaking BORING.
I learned the masterful art of saying, “No” years ago, and use it frequently. I love my time alone and am quite selfish about it. If I don’t have that quiet, alone time to regroup, then I’m very stressed in the end. (Or a complete bitch to be around. Or possibly both. Okay, likely both.)
You’re right about not giving a reason–too many people see a reason as a challenge to prove you wrong.
I see all these people who do nothing but run, run, RUN (my mother, for example) and I want to stop them and ask what in the hell they’re running from. They never stop to take a breath, or simply just BE. How can people live like that?
I get easily burned out by too much activity that isn’t self-directed. I like a lot of sitting around time in my life. Of course, I rarely use it to sit around, but I like the option.
They often appear to be frightened of the stopping, the spaces, the silences and of actually being with themselves, their loved ones and their children. I wonder what they are hoping to avoid? In order to look after yourself, you need to actually like yourself, I think. Running away from addressing any issues with that is a powerful motivator for some people.
P.S. I was always a Spike fan. Always.
Well, yeah! 😉
Spike used to live by me, and I saw him often. I even spoke to him and remembered to call him James.
Oh I so needed to read this today! I have a friend who downright harasses me to visit. She thinks that because I’m a “stay at home Mom,” that I must just lay around eating chocolate all day. She doesn’t understand that I have lots to keep me busy, and heaven forbid entertained without endless visits. In my opinion, a true friend doesn’t continually harass, making plans for lunch a much more enjoyable affair. My friend needs to get the memo. Countless calls, texts, and pouting will only get you one word, “NO!”
Who has time for that? I have things to plant! haha.
Thanks for letting me rant! And reminding me that saying, “No” is perfectly acceptable.
Rant away! I’ve had overly friendly friends. I think part of this is an introvert vs. extrovert thing. Extroverts think it’s energizing to be surrounded by people; introverts (like me) have to gear up for most in-person contact, and then recover.
I guessed your secret right away. May I add some perspective from the other end? During my MLM years I learned to appreciate the time saving clarity of a straightforward NO. I shudder at the memory of the sweet lady in New Orleans who kept expressing an interest in the Amazon Rainforest herbs I was promoting. She had me call back several times. I finally I caught on and realized she was simply too polite to say no. I had to put the words in her mouth, so we could both hang up with a huge sigh of relief.
It’s just more efficient!
Erica wrote:”I get easily burned out by too much activity that isn’t self-directed. I like a lot of sitting around time in my life. Of course, I rarely use it to sit around, but I like the option.” What are you, my clone?
I thought you’d get that!
Yes, yes, and yes to “no”. I’m going to practice and memorize your suggestions for “no”. I have a hard time remembering something tactful to say and then I try to justify my “no” with explanations and I hate doing that!
Thanks!
I think that’s so normal, especially for women. That’s why I wrote (myself) a list! 🙂
No explanations is the hardest part for many of us. Women, especially, are brought up to please (and I sincerely hope that is changing) and the idea of saying no without even justifying is a bold step for many.
I can’t function without plenty of solitude. I need some time every day to be by myself with no (or few and reasonable) demands on my time and attention.
Great post, Erica!
I’m the same way. I’ve tried to communicate to my husband my need for alone time so I don’t get completely crazy, but I think I need to reiterate because it isn’t happening.
I have been saying “why don’t you go” when he books playdates for the kids, though…
To me, solo time is so important to recharge. I think one of the hardest parts of having small children is the feeling that you are never alone.
Amen. Busy people understand ‘no’ when they hear it from others. No even makes it into the garden. No we won’t grow sunchokes, even though they sound fun…..
“No” to sunchokes too. 😉 Unless I can figure out how to ferment them into hooch, they are on my last nerve.
Best advice I’ve heard recently is from a senior citizen neighbor friend of mine… She said, “No is a complete sentence.” So wise.
What a wise friend.
A wise friend taught if it is too hard to say No outright, practice saying, ” I choose not to.” Very helpful. Great discussion. Thanks for the reminders
Erica,
My college-age daughter Bethany and I (inveterate people-pleasers, both of us) while walking one day in early January, decided that we wouldn’t be so hesitant to say “No” this year. We dubbed this year “The Year of ‘No'” and we excitedly made plans for what we would say No to. Then we started spreading the word. I was astonished at how discombobulated people around me became at this, especially when my “No” took something away from their lives: No, I’m not going to raise enough hens to provide eggs for sale any more. No, I’m not going to do Farmer’s Market this year. No, I’m not going to host a very large Easter dinner this year. As liberating it was for me to say no (at this very moment I am sick in bed because I couldn’t say No all last week, when I should have stayed in bed) it really put others out. So prepare yourself for this! You must have Resolve that you are doing the right thing, lest those impacted by your “No” guilt you into saying yes! If you don’t mind, I’ll share my blog post:
http://vomitingchicken.com/2015-sparkling-possibilities-year-no/
I like “The Year of No” – very cool. Thanks for the warning – I shall try to stay strong in my Nos. 🙂
I immediately knew where you were going when I read the title. Ever since having read Steven Pressfield’s “The War of Art” I have begun the process of disburdening myself of the guilt of saying no by realizing that every no to one thing is in fact a yes to something else. Have you read the book by the way? Brilliant.
I have not – thank you for the recommendation, I’ll look it up.
THANK YOU – love this!!! It took practice, but now I love saying NO. Without excuses. For myself and for my kids.
My epiphany happened when I realized that the more I say NO, the happier I am. So now, we allow a maximum of ONE scheduled social activity on the weekend (not counting getting in a run with friends). Everything else is open for doing whatever we want to do.
My four year old goes to preschool a few times a week (purely to play!). No extra lessons yet, unlike just about everyone else we know. We also say no to a lot of random preschool birthday parties. Instead she has lots of time to hang out and play. I have begun to suspect that a lot of parents put their kids in so many activities for two reasons:
1. Everyone else is doing it.
2. They don’t really enjoy spending unstructured time playing with their kids.
I don’t care what everyone else is doing. I’m not trying to “win” a busy-ness contest. I just want to enjoy my family and have time to do whatever I want to do. The more of us who resist this hyper-scheduling nonsense, the better off the whole society will be.
Amen, sister. I just recently learned the power of no. I’m a freelance journalist by trade and it’s always either feast or famine, and for the last ten years I’ve felt like I can’t say no to work or it will never come back again. (even if I was overcommitted or the kids were newborns, etc.). I’ve finally learned to say no, and my life is much more balanced. The work seems to keep coming, too, so maybe I was overthinking it.
As for Buffy. Yeah. I jumped on that the minute it hit Netflix and watched all of them again. ALL of them.
Oh man, I am so guilty of the “maybe” when I really mean no. And oh the explanations. Damn. This is me to a T. Something to definitely work on.
Someone told me once…”No is a complete sentence.” It is a deliciously liberating thought.. you can just say no… no explanation needed!