b. Saying "no" to a certain activity means saying "yes" to myself and our relationship. When you propose something and I say "no" to it, I'm simultaneously saying "yes" to our relationship. Because when I say "yes" while I'm actually a "no", I slowly accumulate resentment that poisons the connection between us without you being able to do anything about it. And, you will inevitably sense when I said "yes" to something but my heart is not in it. Having been on both sides of this, I know how awkward that feels. So, the moment when I start to really feel comfortable around someone is when I heard the first "no" from them, and when saying "no" to them has become something casual for me. "No" is actually a very, very precious gift. Let's treat it as such, and encourage one another to give it more often.
Here's a quote from Steve Jobs about that:
“People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I'm actually as proud of the things we haven't done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying no to 1,000 things.” ― Steve Jobs
source: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/629613-people-think-focus-means-saying-yes-to-the-thing-you-ve
As someone who's about to become a father, I find this highly relevant. I will be studying and practicing several bits of this advice, especially the Productivity Purge and the Decide10 system, before the baby arrives. Thanks a bunch for writing this up.
The LessWrong Review runs every year to select the posts that have most stood the test of time. This post is not yet eligible for review, but will be at the end of 2024. The top fifty or so posts are featured prominently on the site throughout the year.
Hopefully, the review is better than karma at judging enduring value. If we have accurate prediction markets on the review results, maybe we can have better incentives on LessWrong today. Will this post make the top fifty?
After writing "Advice for interacting with busy people", I was asked to write a follow-up on advice for newly busy people. So, here's a quick list of tools and mental models that help me prioritize.
This list is by no means comprehensive. It's just the tools I know and have loved. Take what's useful, and drop what doesn't fit your brain and life.
When someone asks you to join an exciting project that's due half a year from now, it is very, very tempting to say "yes". You'll immediately have a vivid imagination of the shiny outcome, while the workload is far enough in the future to not cross your mind. To mitigate this tendency, it makes sense to apply the Tomorrow Rule. It goes as such: "Am I committed enough to this that I'd clear up time in my schedule tomorrow to make it happen?"
If you already have too many projects on your plate and can't make reasonable progress on any of them, you might want to go through a round of Cal Newport's productivity purge algorithm. The steps:
- "When it feels like your schedule is becoming too overwhelmed, take out a sheet of paper and label it with three columns: professional, extracurricular, and personal. Under “professional” list all the major projects you are currently working on in your professional life (if you’re a student, then this means classes and research, if you have a job, then this means your job, etc). Under “extracurricular” do the same for your side projects (your band, your blog, your plan to write a book). And under “personal” do the same for personal self-improvement projects (from fitness to reading more books).
- Under each list try to select one or two projects which, at this point in your life, are the most important and seem like they would yield the greatest returns. Put a star by these projects.
- Next, identify the projects that you could stop working on right away with no serious consequences. Cross these out.
- Finally, for the projects that are left unmarked, come up with a 1-3 week plan for finalizing and dispatching them. Many of these will be projects for which you owe someone something before you can stop working on them. Come up with a crunch plan for the near future for shutting these down as quickly as possible.
- Once you completed your crunch plan you’ll be left with only a small number of important projects. In essence, you have purged your schedule of all but a few contenders to be your next Theory of Relativity. Here’s the important part: Try to go at least one month without starting any new projects. Resist, at all costs, committing to anything during this month. Instead, just focus, with an Einsteinian intensity, on your select list."
At some point in January/February, I felt pretty lonely and decided to make a list of all the lovely people I know and spend too little time with. After writing down the names of 40 people in Berlin alone and more in other cities, I realized what was the problem: I fully optimized for creating loose ties, for getting the spark of novelty and knowing what's going on in my various communities. Meanwhile, I didn't commit enough to anyone as that I'd know who to call when I'm feeling low.
So - you might want to create two networks simultaneously, which work by different rules:
My holy grail for prioritizing together with people I'm already committed to is the Decide10 rating system. If you are unsure whether or not to do something, both of you give a number between 0 and 10. If your numbers add up to 10 or more, do it. The full glossary is in the article, here's a teaser:
Three perks of this system:
If your schedule gets too full, you will inevitably drop things and disappoint people by being flaky. Instead, you may want to say "yes" rarely but trustworthily.
When you propose something and I say "no" to it, I'm simultaneously saying "yes" to our relationship. Because when I say "yes" while I'm actually a "no", I slowly accumulate resentment that poisons the connection between us without you being able to do anything about it. And, you will inevitably sense when I said "yes" to something but my heart is not in it. Having been on both sides of this, I know how awkward that feels.
So, the moment when I start to really feel comfortable around someone is when I heard the first "no" from them, and when saying "no" to them has become something casual for me.
"No" is actually a very, very precious gift. Let's treat it as such, and encourage one another to give it more often.
If we have trained our system 1 well enough, it is an extremely valuable resource. It knows our values and priorities better than our explicit self-concept does. And, it has accumulated an immense amount of experience we can draw on for making decisions.
So - if something feels interesting and exciting, do it; if not, drop it.
Important: If you have big decisions to make, only use this like a focusing prompt, while you have some time for your mind to roam freely. Consider the whole situation first, for example by using other decisionmaking tools like the Productivity Purge, Internal Double Crux, or Goal Factoring.
The yumminess meter may not be a wise pick as an emergency exit when you are acutely overwhelmed. Because in those situations, your brain tends to lose the view for the big picture.