Letting Go and Saying No

Convener and note-taker: BJ Wishinsky

This session was a spin-off from the one on diversity and supporting technical women. There were a number of women who wanted to talk more about how to say no, and I offered this existing material I'd created on Letting Go (and saying no) as a tool for time management and work/life balance. We started with the section on how to say No and then went through some of the other material once we were through that. A few notes from our conversation follow the slides.

 

 

Highlights from the discussion:

• We talked about fear around delegating tasks to others. I can't remember which participant said this (feel free to take credit here!), but it's so on target: "It's about coming from a place of abundance instead of a place of fear."
• Another idea around delegation: the circle of referrals. You may refer a requestor to someone else when you're too busy, but that person may refer interesting work back to you at a later date.
• What information can you put on the web once and point people to, rather than having to spend time explaining?
• Add people's questions (and your answers) to an FAQ.
• One of the things you have to manage is that what's urgent to others may not be urgent to you. You may need to train people to come to you before things get urgent.
• A trick for getting started, getting things done, or breaking through procrastination: Make yourself spend 15 (or 30) minutes a day on a task.