Welcome back to weekend coffee chats, the Young Professional series.
This week, let’s talk about a more general topic, saying no to tasks.
Before you think this is crazy, let me explain. If you’ve recently joined a role or a company and haven’t been there for at least a year, then by all means skip this post and come back then. As your first year is all about learning and saying yes to as many opportunities and projects as you can (ethical and legal ones of course) (Let me know if you’d actually like a post about that).
If on the other hand you’ve been in your role for a while now that you know the ins and outs of it and the pain points, then keep reading.
You’ll notice after a while that once the initial challenge of figuring out what needs to be done, how, and through who, that you’ll start seeing the inefficiencies that you can work on eliminating or the tasks that are not actually that vital for your role. Or you could get some feedback that maybe you’re stretching yourself too thin. Either way it boils down to the same result.
See, we usually focus on to do lists, productivity, time management, and more to get things done as soon as we can. However, one neglected aspect is simply saying no to some tasks.
Now I’ve asked the same questions you’re probably thinking:
- how can i say no when I’m in a junior role, won’t that look bad ? I mean it’s not that simple
- isn’t it actually my job to get everything done? (related to my tasks)
- how can I know what tasks I can actually say no to ?
Let us break down each of them:
- Not really, as it seems to be worse if you commit to a task/project and either don’t do it or submit it half done. As long as you say no politely, explaining you have more urgent things on your plate, and maybe offering an alternative timing or colleague to help instead you’re good. (Average industries are taken into consideration here and not highly demanding ones)
- Also no. You’ve got main goals and objectives for your role that you need to achieve of course, but anything else you can support but you don’t have to get yourself burnt-out doing them. Additionally, even your main goals and objectives (G&Ob), if you have to collaborate with other teams to get them done, saying no to unnecessary work is important so you can have the time needed to focus on those (G&Ob).
- Check your goals and objectives and see whether that task is a main part of them, or it’s just a supportive one.
Of course it’s important to highlight that you won’t do this for every task you have, that would be a nightmare. But let’s say there’s task X, you’ve done it a few times to support another team, but now you’re getting asked for it every week even though it’s not part of you (G&Ob) and it’s taking time away from other tasks that are more important. This is exactly the sort of thing you probably need to say no to, and clarify that you were just being helpful previously.
Another example would be, being asked to follow up directly with some teams, regions, or clients to get things done faster (especially if they’re urgent). If there’s a liaison between these groups, they’re there for a good reason, to prevent things from becoming a gigantic mess. Even though you may be helping by directly contacting them, in the long term this will just add stress to your plate that you can do without. Reply with a kind “this needs to be checked with person x as they’re the point of contact for this matter.”
It’s hard to say no, but it’s vital at times, and I think we can all start with at least one or two no’s this year and see whether that makes our role’s easier or more complicated and adjust accordingly.
Till next time 🙂 !
Weekend Coffee Chats 