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

The-day-before feel­ing

Time pass­es, and before you know it, it is the day before that bor­ing, uncom­fort­able, or scary thing you vague­ly agreed to, will occur. You deeply regret say­ing yes. Now it is what it is, but you promise your­self to nev­er do this again.

Today, I want to share a trick with you that will increase the chances of you answer­ing the request you feel hes­i­tant about in a way that you will not regret lat­er on.

Do this

When you are asked to do some­thing, be respon­si­ble for some­thing, or help with some­thing that is due far into the future but which you do not imme­di­ate­ly want to accept, imag­ine that the request con­cerns some­thing that is hap­pen­ing tomorrow.

If today were the day before you were to do it, how would you feel? Would you look for­ward to it or would you regret say­ing yes and dread the fact that you now have to row it all ashore and do the thing you said yes to?

Imag­ine being in this sit­u­a­tion. Then act in accor­dance with how you feel (tak­ing into account aspects such as the fact that the task in ques­tion is cen­tral to your job or that your boss takes it for grant­ed that a per­son in your role does what is being asked and is expect­ed, of course).

It prob­a­bly will not feel any dif­fer­ent when the real ​“day before” comes. Right now, you have a chance to make a deci­sion you will lat­er thank your pre­vi­ous self for making.

More of the right tasks

If you imag­ine how you will feel ​“the day before” when you are asked to do some­thing, you will be less like­ly than oth­er­wise to bit­ter­ly regret mak­ing hasty deci­sions. You will not spend months fret­ting over the fact that you said yes, and instead, you will be able to enjoy know­ing that you most­ly (per­haps only!) do things you enjoy and are inspired by in your job.

What’s more, the per­son who asked you gets a clear answer ear­ly on, thus mak­ing it eas­i­er for them to find some­one who will whole­heart­ed­ly say yes instead — to the ben­e­fit of all parties.

How do you do it?

What are your tricks for not say­ing yes to too much and some­times the wrong things? Please write and share your expe­ri­ences and thoughts!

(Do you find it hard not say yes? One tip is to make tem­plates for say­ing no!)