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For you who prefer listening to reading, this post is also available as an episode of the ""Done!"" podcast:

A habit that does not serve you

This is a shame because your days will not at all turn out as you would want them to if you let this bad habit get the bet­ter of you. You will have more on your plate than you feel com­fort­able hav­ing, your bad con­science will be a con­stant com­pan­ion, and you lose ener­gy for no good reason.

An ace up your sleeve

What if you just had a great answer pre­pared to pull out and use in these sit­u­a­tions — a ​“no” that both helps you to con­trol your work­flow in a con­struc­tive way and gives an unequiv­o­cal answer that can­not pos­si­bly be mis­un­der­stood by the per­son who asked you?

The bril­liant respons­es and come­backs that are tru­ly on-point might come to you a while after they were actu­al­ly need­ed which can be a real bum­mer. But even if they did not occur to you at the moment when you would have want­ed them to, they have the poten­tial of becom­ing an ace up your sleeve the next time you need a good response if you make sure to save them when they even­tu­al­ly do come to you.

Do this

1. Right now, when you have a moment of peace and qui­et, remind your­self of the com­mon­ly recur­ring sit­u­a­tions in your life when you need to say no and when doing so is not all that sim­ple. Think of a way to for­mu­late your response so that it is unam­bigu­ous as well as easy to say or write. You will most like­ly get the same request or some­thing like it again.
   
   If you can not imme­di­ate­ly recall a sit­u­a­tion when you found it hard to say no on the spot, you can now look for­ward to the next time this hap­pens to you instead of dread­ing it. If the per­fect response then comes to you a while after you would have want­ed it to, write down what you wish you would have said and use it next time you need a quick comeback.
2. Find a good place to keep your ​“no”-responses eas­i­ly avail­able. It can, for instance, be:
   • In a Word doc­u­ment called ​“I said no.docx”, ​“I am a nay-sayer.docx”, or why not just ​“Saying-no-templates.docx”.
   • In the text bank where you gath­er oth­er ready respons­es and texts which you like to reuse. I keep mine in Evernote.
   • As email tem­plates in the email client if you often receive emails with ques­tions requir­ing yes- och no answers.
   • In the app you use for text expan­sion. What apps there are for this spe­cif­ic pur­pose is some­thing I dis­cussed in the 40^th episode of the video ver­sion of Done!. It is in Swedish but it has the links to the dif­fer­ent apps I sug­gest you have a look at.
3. The next time you get any kind of ques­tion you have got­ten before which you, deep down, believe deserves a ​“no thank you”, get your pre­pared answers out quick­ly and use them as a back­up. You might need to adjust them slight­ly to be ful­ly appro­pri­ate in the moment, but hav­ing some­thing to base your response on will make it eas­i­er to do so.

Back on track A.S.A.P.

If you pre­pare great answers to ques­tions you get from time to time and which you pre­vi­ous­ly wished you had respond­ed ​“no” to, you will get these ques­tions out of the way soon­er and with less anx­i­ety. They no longer have to hang over you and you no longer need to post­pone giv­ing who­ev­er is wait­ing for an answer just that. You can get back on track with what you want to focus on faster and what real­ly needs to get done, will get done. And that is sim­ply great, I you ask me.

What’s your way?

How have you made it as easy as you pos­si­bly can to say ​“no” when it is the right thing to do? For some peo­ple, this is a non-issue but to oth­ers (includ­ing myself some­times) it is a recur­ring has­sle and source of dis­com­fort. This is exact­ly why I am curi­ous to hear what your par­tic­u­lar trick or method is, in addi­tion to the above that works well for me. Please write to me and share!

(Look­ing for more ways to improve your com­mu­ni­ca­tion with col­leagues? Check out my tips on how to show your col­leagues when you plan to work from home!)