Learn to say no. Not every task gives you the same return on investment, so why are we treating them all equally? You may have ten things to complete on your “To Do” list, but only three are important, urgent, and can’t be delegated to someone else. Of those three tasks, one is more important than the others. Focus on that most important task until it is complete and say NO to everything else until it is done.
Every time you say “yes” to something that is not related to your one task, you are saying “no” to your most important work. Saying yes to everything is like making incremental progress in a thousand directions. You’ll be very busy, but it won’t feel like you’ve done anything substantial. But if you limit what you say yes to and only focus on your most important task, you can make enormous progress in one direction.
By learning to say no to others, you are saying yes to yourself. Be ok with not making everyone else happy. You aren’t able to even if you try. You have to be able to say no (to yourself and to others) or else you’ll never be able to make the progress that you desire.
