How do you say no?

LoganStrohl

Some people seem to be a bit too generous for their own good. I know a precious few people who are especially good at saying "no" when asked to take on new responsibilities that would put them over their limits. I love working with people like that because I can always trust them to tell me when it would be better for me to find someone else to do the thing. I expect this to be an extremely valuable skill it would probably be good for many of us to understand, learn, and be able to teach to people who really need it.

If you frequently find yourself overburdened, think it's not entirely necessary for you to be doing as much as you are, and can recall a specific instance in the last month where someone asked you to do something and you accepted against your better judgement, I invite you to describe what you were feeling and thinking at the time.

Alternately, if you're an unusually busy and productive person who nevertheless is good at saying "no", I'd like to hear about

a specific example of a time when you said no to new responsibility, what was going on in your head, and how it felt
how exactly you believe you decide whether to take on or reject prospective responsibilities if you have an explicit model
whether you consider yourself more or less empathetic or compassionate than average
whether there was ever a time when you had that "don't know how to say no" problem, and if so what changed

Alternately, if you're an unusually busy and productive person who nevertheless is good at saying "no", I'd like to hear about

a specific example of a time when you said no to new responsibility, what was going on in your head, and how it felt
how exactly you believe you decide whether to take on or reject prospective responsibilities if you have an explicit model
whether you consider yourself more or less empathetic or compassionate than average
whether there was ever a time when you had that "don't know how to say no" problem, and if so what changed

I'm fairly good at saying no. I would consider myself unusually productive, but not unusually busy...because I'm fairly good at saying no.

At work if a boss asks me to do something that seems interesting but where I don't have time, I'll say something like "I currently have too much on my plate to handle X. These are my priorities, should I drop something to do X?" For example, I recently used this when I was asked to do some market research but didn't have time.
If they ask me to do something I'm not interested, I'll say "I'm not very good at X, but (person B) is. I'd be happy to take something off their plate if they can handle X." I recently used this when asked to do several programming tasks I wasn't particularly interested in or good at.
If the boss insists on me doing X that I'm not interested in, or on getting everything done, I'll say something like "I can handle it this time as a special case, but we need to work out a different solution going forward."
If a friend asks me I'm much more blunt-I'll explicitly say that I'm not really interested. E.g. one of my friends recently asked me to help organize an event, and I told them I really dislike logistics work.

Overall in all of these situations I felt slightly guilty. I like being helpful and would prefer to contribute.

I receive a lot of requests, so I default to rejecting responsibilities. I generally accept them only if they seem particularly interesting or valuable.
Less empathetic/compassionate than average
Yes. Mostly I just learned political skills so that I could say no politely.

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How do you say no?

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How do you say no?

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