Above my desk, written in thick green chalk, are the words ‘Hell Yeah, or No’. It is a useful aide-memoire from the writer and entrepreneur Derek Sivers. 

Saying ‘yes’ to things is an excellent way of opening up your life to serendipity and adventure. But first, you need to carve out enough time to be able to capitalise on those opportunities. You also need time to do the grinding, unglamorous, lonely work that – eventually, possibly – might one day lead to the exciting invitations. To be able to say ‘yes’, you first need to say ‘no’ a bunch of times.

Therefore, whenever I am asked to commit to something, I gauge my initial gut response. If my instinct is anything less than, ‘hell yeah! Sign me up’ then I force myself to say, ‘no thank you’. 

My short term brain protests, ‘but it sounds quite fun… But it pays quite well…’ 

Yet the chalk scrawl reminds me that it has to be a ‘Hell Yeah’ otherwise it’s a ‘No’.

Another trick for resisting stuffing the calendar (like Monty Python’s gluttonous Mr Creosote who gorged himself so full that one wafer-thin slice of mint caused him to explode) is to imagine that the thing you are agreeing to is happening tomorrow. Are you excited about jumping out of bed for it, or does it now sound like a hassle? 

I am terrible at valuing my future time. Bringing the thought into the present helps me get a more accurate feeling for whether I should accept that speaking engagement six months down the line in a village hall in northern Scotland which is paying me a jar of pickled eggs in exchange for eight hours travel on a Rail Replacement Bus Service… or whether I should decline. 

It is much less painful to offer an immediate, polite ‘no’ than to agree to do something and then later regret it. [By the way, if you find it hard to say ‘no’ to nice people – as I do – try setting up automated ‘canned responses’ for your emails. Having a set text to click saves you having to actually type mean things to friendly people and thus prevents you wavering…*] 

You can do anything, but you cannot do everything. Hoard and defend your time fanatically. 

Say no more.  

OVER TO YOU:
What can you say ‘no’ to that will free up time and energy for you to live more adventurously?