In short: never say yes right away. Always say: I'll come back to you about this later. Later can be one hour later, once you slept on it. This allows you to verify your calendar and other commitments without the live social pressure that kills your critical thinking.

Many of us are people who want to help and be of service for others.. But this tendency can also lead to problems. We might say yes too easily to please others while this could make our life worse. Or we might say yes too fast without thinking about the consequences for other projects we have.

A nice trick that has worked for me is to not say yes directly but to tell people I'll come back to them later with my final answer.

This extra time where I' m alone let's me:

• Verity my calendar to see if I can make it happen in the time I really have

• reflect it I'm the best person to do this or if some one else would be better

• think without the social pressure if I really want to do this

• see if there is not a simpler way to do it that could lead to a rebriefing

But what if the person needs the answer right away? You can always say:

"I'll come back to you in an hour / 30 minutes" .

And it still then the person wants you to answer right away your answer should be no. Because a person who wants to pressure you and doesn't want you to reflect even a little bit will be a pain in the ass who will never respect any boundaries.

Backstage of this article

This article was written and illustrated on a refurbished Remarkable II tablet. The handwriting was converted to typed text using the Connect Service by Remarkable. You can download the original note below if you are curious.