How to Say No to Overextending Yourself
“Hey — can you do me a favor?”
This one phrase alone is probably responsible for more stress and lost productive time than any other on earth.
Most of us respond to the question automatically: we smile (or force a smile) and agree. Even if we’re up to our eyeballs in work that we really should be doing instead.
Sometimes, we might hem-and-haw and try to come up with a reason that doesn’t sound rude or like a cop-out. But with some extra pressure, we cave and accept the task.
On occasion, we volunteer ourselves for the task. Something needs to be done and hey, we can do that thing!
The end result is always the same:
We’re overstretched. Because we’ve overpromised. Again.
How do we break this vicious cycle? Read on.
Understand Why We Overextend Ourselves
On the surface, overextending seems like a pretty illogical thing to do. Why would anyone try to take on more than they can handle, especially if the requests are coming from someone else?
But dig a little deeper and overextension starts to make more sense. For the most part, we overpromise because:
We want to be helpful: Sometimes, it’s our altruism that lands us in this mess. Someone comes to us needing help and we just can’t help ourselves — we have to help. This can certainly make us feel good in the short term, but can lead to some awkward situations if we can’t produce what’s needed in the end.
We want to be seen as capable: Other times, our helpfulness is a side benefit. Instead, we might take on a task just to prove to ourselves or others that we can do it. Think of it as the mental equivalent to trying to take all the grocery bags into the house in one trip. Unfortunately, pride is a powerful force — and we can easily fall into pushing ourselves too hard to save face.
We want to distract ourselves: We also might overpromise because the given task looks so much better than something else we have to do. It’s false productivity and procrastination wrapped up in the neat excuse of: “But I need to do this for So-and-So.” Yet, it’s still distracting us from what really needs to get done.
We want to do the task — regardless of the time needed: There are some tasks that simply scream our names. We offer our time because we enjoy doing the task. The danger here lies in the potential to bite off more than we can chew. The task might expand into a bigger project than intended or our time might be much more limited than we think.
With those reasons in mind, let’s look at how we can stop overextending ourselves.
Knowing Your Capabilities
At its core, overpromising occurs when we don’t have the time, resources or ability to carry out a task. Thus, knowing your capabilities can help cut back on your overextension tendencies.
First, realistic knowledge of your strengths and weaknesses is invaluable. If you take on a task that plays to your strengths, you’ll likely be able to complete it in less time and more easily than a task that relies on skills you consider weak points. While yes, it can be tempting to volunteer to do something to test your abilities, I would generally recommend against it unless a task is non-urgent and relatively non-important.
Second, truly understanding the time and energy involved in completing a certain task can help reduce the overextension temptation. If you know with absolute certainty that a task that’s billed as taking “only ten minutes” is going to take thirty minutes to an hour in reality, you’re more likely to ensure you have the time first, then volunteer.
Finally, an awareness of your stress levels can help decide whether it’s worth taking a task on or not. If you’re relatively relaxed, volunteering might not be a problem. But making yourself available for a task when you’re already stressed out of your mind is going to lead to nothing but extra stress, frustration and potential trouble.
Tackling the Time Tasks Take
So you might be wondering how to get a better understanding of your time when it comes to avoiding overextension. There are two fairly simple methods:
For the detail oriented folks out there, time tracking will be your best bet. If you track everything you do in a day, not only will you have a better understanding of how much time it takes to perform certain tasks, you’ll also know how much free time you have available in case an assignment takes longer than advertised.
While there are any number of apps and articles on this subject, both Aaron Lynn at Asian Efficiency and Erin Greenawald at Zapier have great guides on the subject.
If you find that time tracking is too detailed or restricted, never fear — there’s another way to understand your time. I call it the “High/Low” Game.
Essentially, you’ll want to look at a task and say: “Optimistically, how long will this task take?” This will be your low estimate on the time required. Then, ask: “Pessimistically, how long will this task take?” This will be your high estimate on the time required.
Depending on how confident you are in your abilities and your knowledge of the task, you might estimate closer to the higher or lower end. But if you’re completely in the dark, splitting right down the middle will often give you a realistic estimate of how long the task will take.
Plan, Plan, Plan.
The unexpected happens to everyone. But the less unpredictability and fewer “open loops” you have in your life, the better your schedule awareness will be. And thus, the better your knowledge of when to and when not to volunteer.
Your calendar is your number one tool to reduce this unpredictability. Try to get as many important dates and events on the calendar as you can. Once you know your “immovable blocks” of time, you’ll also know the “fudge time” you have available outside of those blocks.
Minimally, I would suggest planning out the next day if you’re taking on a short term task. If the task is a longer term sort of project, plan your next week or two, even if it’s in a “rough draft” format. And if you truly want the “overkill” option, take a look at your entire month and draft out your plans along with day and week plans.
The aim here is not reduced flexibility or to know everything ahead of time. It’s to reinforce your time awareness to avoid overextension and provide data to evaluate if you find yourself falling into the overpromising trap repeatedly.
Be Honest (With Others — And Yourself.)
Working through this process should help you cut down on your overextension tendencies — provided you’re wiling to say no to some things.
I know, it’s hard to get comfortable with this idea. Fortunately, a number of folks have written extensively on the topic. Leo Babauta’s article at Lifehack and Michael Hyatt’s guide on saying “no” have some great pointers on the “day-to-day no’s” while Tim Ferriss’ clarity guide at Thrive Global can help for the bigger decisions.
But what happens when “no” is impossible? Maybe someone is ignoring your request or it’s a task you absolutely cannot refuse. Let’s break this down:
If you’re dealing with a co-worker, loved one or anyone you have an evenly balanced relationship with: be honest about your priorities. If the task you’ve been asked to do is going to be way down on your list, tell the asker that — just be polite about it. Explain that you have other time-sensitive tasks that you can’t delay and while you’re glad to do the task, it may take a little longer to complete.
If you’re being asked by a client, a manager/boss or anyone who sets your responsibilities and schedule: ask which tasks are the most urgent and the most important and/or which ones could be delayed while you work on the top priorities. After all, you can’t do it all perfectly at the same time. Explain that you can do both tasks to the best of your abilities given a certain amount of time — which may be longer than the asker anticipated. Stress that the quality of the work may not be your best if you have to complete all of the tasks at the same time. Most of the time, the asker will be able to clarify so you can prioritize into more manageable chunks.
There’s also a great deal to be said for being honest with yourself. How certain are you of saying yes or no to an assignment? What’s the motive behind your decision? Do you know you have enough time to do your best work? Alternatively: how sure are you that you can’t take on a responsibility? Knowing your capacity is a double-edged sword — you don’t want to overpromise, but you also don’t want to deprive others of your help unnecessarily. Ultimately, this kind of self-reflection is required for truly breaking the overextension cycle.
So to recap: to fight the overpromising loop you need to:
- Understand your capabilities
- Know how long tasks will take
- Plan ahead as much as you can
- Be honest with yourself and others about your capacity and expectations
With these techniques, you’ll be well equipped to battle the overpromising bug.
Have other suggestions to combat the overextension loop? Please feel free to share them in the responses!
