Scheduling And Saying No

When you say yes to something, you say no to a hundred other things.

Often, those things are hidden, half-realised or unplanned. If you choose to go out with friends on an afternoon with no other scheduled activities, it’s not immediately clear what you said no to. It might be Netflix, writing another blog post, cleaning the house, or playing candy crush for 4 hours straight without blinking.

Without knowing, it’s easy to say yes. In fairness, with no scheduled activities, it often ends up being unblinking-candy-crush anyway.

Something I’ve noticed recently is just how clear a schedule makes prioritisation.

For instance, my tuesdays have 3 activities apart from work on them. I go and pick up trash, I write a blog post, and also, I convert part of it to either a LinkedIn article or a LinkedIn post.

If I say yes to playing Xbox with friends for an hour, I have to say no to something I really want to be doing consistently.

If I was less intentional about the planning, it’d be less clear what I was saying no to, and easier to squander my time.

Scheduling activities with intent and purpose has many benefits, and this is merely one.