Avoiding Overcommitment: Knowing When To Say No

Biz Chicks Rule

I said no again today.

• No, I will not help with the PTO fundraiser.
• No, I will not serve on the community board to raise funds for a new park.
• No, I will not bring 2 dozen brownies to my son’s first grade class party.
• No, I do not have a “second” to chat.
• And, finally, no I do not want that credit card offer/lotto winnings/a free ice-cream maker/fill-in-the-blank.

I said no and it felt good.

[Photo Source: Getty Images]

Being in business, whether you’re a freelancer, work-from-home woman, corporate exec or a telecommuter, I’m sure you’ve found maybe three reasons just today as to why you should say “no.” It’s so easy to overcommit when you have a flexible schedule and everyone around you “needs” you. Yeah, right. What were they doing before us?

A couple of months ago I had a “situation” that occured in my professional life that made me realize just how overcommited I was and how badly I needed to scale back. There are/were soooo many things that I want to do in both my professional life and in my personal life, but I was always struggling with time and finding time to make all of these things happen. With a business, children, spouse and a household, achieving my own goals was growing farther and farther away from me and began to seem like only a distant dream. Have you ever wanted something so badly that you could almost feel it, as if you already had it?

One day it hit me that I was never going to achieve any of my goals if I didn’t
1) prioritize,
2) set goals (with timelines),
3) work towards those goals on a daily basis and
4) just…say…no.

Now number four was and has always been my challenge, but this summer all of that changed. No more nice girl here. Bridget stopped long enough to realize that the ONLY way that I was going to see any of my dreams come true was to perhaps fizzle everybody else’s dreams. Not being mean or anything, but I had to realize that the world will not come to an end if I am not the one serving as president of the PTO committee or if I am the soccer team mom. It just won’t.

In my realizations, I had to adjust a few things and let a few other things go. I was serving on too many non-revenue producing boards. I eliminated three of them in one fail swoop. I was writing and maintaining other blogs that weren’t lining up with my core business interests. I eliminated 4 of those and started focusing on my blog here at Biz Chicks Rule and at Corporate-Eye. I’m streamlining my Professional Speaking Blog and Church Marketing Blog. The last two you don’t see yet because I’m, well, streamlining them. (btw, anybody know of a good WordPress designer?)

That was the point of downsizing my life. I took on higher paying clients and eliminated the ones that paid below my target hourly rate. I figure I would fare better to place all of my energy into a client that paid $1000 month than I would 5 clients that paid $100 month. Simple math for me.

I also streamlined my personal life by not allowing my kids to participate in so many extra-curricular activities. That just creates more work for us moms. Since all three of them are in sports, I made a deal with them to take their activities seasonally. In other words, my cheerleader is currently cheering for football season and when that’s over, then my soccer player will pick up and play soccer in the spring. In the middle of that, my basketball player will dunk baskets at the top of the season in January. I will not find myself running all over town, carting children to various sporting events and activities. And besides folks, they’re only 11, 7 and 4. OK, now you see what I’m saying.

Overcommiting is quite harmful to you as a business woman because it can keep you from being focused on the things that really matter to you. Aside from the obviously important things like family and job, everything else should be secondary. Watch out for the “little” things that seem like harmless activities but can turn out to be time-eaters. I’m sure you can identify at least two things in your life right now that waste your time.

1.

2.

See? You can and should eliminate those immediately if you want to see productivity in your business. Chatty friends? Turn on the answering machine. Spouse wants you to run errands? Set certain days that you will do just that and help him understand that. Slow or non-productive days? Set daily goals and reward yourself when you accomplish them.

Take each thing that you have to do step by step, carefully planning where you want to be and what you want to do and it can happen for you. I am beginning to have more productive, fulfilling work days and I even feel quite accomplished at the end of the day when I am able to check things off of my list.

What are some areas that you struggle with “no” in? How can you change this to start seeing some of your goals come to life?
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Copyright 2008 - Bridget Wright