How to say ‘no’ at work and have no regrets

There were once four scientists who decided to take a systematic approach to honing one of working life’s great skills: the art of saying no.
With workloads heading to burnout levels of busyness, they agreed that in the space of one year, they would collectively turn down 100 work-related requests and track what happened as a result.
Having drawn up a spreadsheet to record what each passed up and why, and how they felt about it, they set about declining a raft of requests to review journal articles, write grant proposals or run more things at work. Together, they also turned down 31 speaking invitations – fewer than the 43 talks and guest lectures they still gave.
It took them 10 months to rack up their 100th “no”, or roughly 25 rejections each, by which time they had learned several things. First, the act of tracking your work itself makes it easier to say no, partly because you get a better idea of everything you’re doing.
Also, a firm rejection is better than a “soft no” because agreeing to, say, give a talk in a few months’ time, or review a paper instead of co-writing it, invariably leads to bigger asks later. And there are useful rules to adopt, such as “does this fit with my work?”, “does it spark joy?” and “can I do it without messing up existing commitments?”.
The four academics – all environmental social scientists and all female – wrote about their year in a 2022 Nature science journal article, which I recommend. But one of their discoveries has stuck with me since: they had no regrets about saying no.
[ How to … say noOpens in new window ]
They did routinely feel guilty and they worried about letting others down – despite visible evidence of the substantial commitments each had made. Yet they also felt their fears of missing out, or suffering reprisals for saying no, were unfounded.
I was curious to know if this was still the case two years on. When I contacted one of the four last week to ask, I found that not only did they still have zero regrets, they were doubling down on saying no. Or rather, quadrupling.
“One of our big takeaways was that 100 declines collectively is great but it’s not enough,” said AR Siders, an associate professor at the University of Delaware’s disaster research centre, who researches climate adaptation.
“So now we’re trying for 100 each in the year ending December 2024, so together we should say no to 400 things.”
Prof Siders had so far managed 34 declines, putting her behind the other three who had recorded 37, 51 and 54.
But she was pleased to have beaten the 25-odd “nos” she achieved the last time. She put this down to strategies she adopted to make rejections easier, such as limiting the number of peer reviews she writes to two for each journal article she takes part in submitting.
She is also trying to cap the number of speaking invitations she accepts. And crucially, she is trying to whittle down big commitments that affect how well she can work, such as research projects, not just smaller things like talks.
“So even though I might say no less often, I’m saying no to bigger things and it’s making a difference,” she says. When she fell ill recently she had enough slack in her schedule that getting sick didn’t throw everything into disarray.
[ Brianna Parkins: ‘That doesn’t work for me actually’. Unapologetically saying ‘no’ is mesmerisingOpens in new window ]
I find all this instructive, especially for women, who often find it hard to say no to far more thankless requests than giving a talk. Female employees are statistically more likely than men to be asked to take on mentoring, training and other time-eating “non-promotable tasks”. They are also more likely to do them, according to four different female academics who wrote a 2022 book about the problem.
Siders had not heard of the book until after she and her colleagues published their Nature article. But the coincidence doesn’t strike me as that odd, considering the expectation on so many women to say yes to extra work.
Either way, as a recovering yes-person, I intend to keep one idea in mind from a member of Siders’ group.
Work opportunities always seem lovely in the beginning. But just as cute babies grow up to be teenagers, and puppies become big dogs, you have to remember they will ultimately end up needing a lot of hard work. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2024