Last December, my wife decided that her goal for 2024 was to embark on a postgraduate degree in physical therapy. She looked at the curriculum and announced it would only be twelve hours of lectures each week, and she could easily find that time.

Two months into the course, she’s had to cut back on her social time. She’s struggling to squeeze in her weekly dance classes, and poor Louis (our little Yorkshire Terrier) rarely gets to walk with her.

What happened?

My wife forgot about the “admin cost” involved in any new endeavour. In particular, she forgot she would need to study for tests and exams. She also discovered that anatomy is not easy to learn with all its anteriors and posteriors and Latin and Greek names.

It’s all too easy to say yes to any new commitment that comes our way. Saying “yes” is polite; you don’t have to think of an excuse for being unable to do whatever you are asked to do, and whoever is asking you will quickly leave you alone.

Yet, what happens? Within a few days, you get more emails, are invited, and expected to attend meetings, and you will likely find that the scope of what you were initially asked to do expands, and more work is expected of you.

One or two of these new commitments may just be about manageable, but it rarely stops at just one or two. Within a few weeks, 80% of your time is spent in meetings and dealing with emails and Teams messages. You no longer have time to do the work you were originally asked to do.

In his book Slow Productivity, Cal Newport offers an interesting way of handling these requests that avoids saying no.

Create a Word or Google Doc; at the top, list all the things you are currently committed to working on. Then draw a line and, underneath, allow other people to add the tasks/projects they would like you to do.

You can then explain you will be “pulling” in new work in the order they appear on the waiting list once you have completed one of your current pieces of work.

The idea is that anyone asking you to do something for them will see how much you are currently committed to, and they can decide if you are the best person for the work, given that you cannot begin working on their project/task for a few weeks.

I suspect very few people will have the courage to do this, yet it is a very effective method for managing your workload. All you need to do is share the document with anyone who attempts to get you involved in their work.

Another strategy you can adopt is to protect time each day for your important work. The time you protect will depend on your natural biorhythms. If you focus best in the morning, you would block two hours when you resist all meeting requests and interruptions. If you are more of an afternoon person, you can protect time in the afternoon.

This is making an appointment with yourself to do your critical work.

If you receive a meeting request that conflicts with your focus time, you can negotiate and suggest an alternative time. Most meeting times are randomly selected. There is often room for negotiation. For example, if you have protected time for 9:30 to 11:30 am and a colleague asks you to attend a meeting at 11:00 am, you could suggest 11:45 am instead.

It’s surprising how often people will accept your alternative time. If not, at least you tried. Losing one or two focused block times each week does not mean it does not work. You are still protected for three days.

Both these approaches — the current commitment list and protected time — bring predictability to your day. When you start the day, you can confidently plan it, knowing you have time to do your essential work without additional admin time costs getting in the way.

When you don’t establish some order to your day, it’s like turning on a fire hose and being unable to turn it off. Tasks will come at you from all directions because you are too willing to take on more and more. People will consciously or unconsciously take advantage of that willingness.

One of the most powerful time management and productivity strategies is learning to say no without offending other people. It’s not easy, which is why so few people try it, yet if you want to do better work, advance up the promotion ladder, or build a stronger business, your ability to spend more time doing your work and less time talking about it will be critical.

Thank you for reading my stories! 😊

If you would like to receive the best productivity and time management tips and tricks each week in one convenient email, you can subscribe to my weekly newsletter here.

You can also learn more about what I do here on my website