I've been thinking a lot about this a related topic lately -- how much of our lives and the things we find ourselves doing are tasks that are imposed upon us by others. I'm trying to come up with strategies to minimize this, which I guess is related to "saying no" to a lot of things. But I'm not sure the ideal path. Let me give some (non-work) examples:
I flew back from Europe on Wednesday, and the airline misplaced my luggage. To get it back, they've imposed a ton of steps on ME. "Here's your reference number. Call our customer support in 24 hours. Follow-up every day until you get it" is what I was told (and what I'll have to do).
It seems unfair that an act that was 0% my fault results in at least several hours of tasks for me. I have to follow-up. I have to wait on hold. I have to spend time thinking and wondering if my luggage will ever show up.
How do we avoid this? Getting angry doesn't work (trust me, they've been yelled at). Ignoring it doesn't work - no luggage will show up. So I guess the only real solution would be to have a personal assistant or otherwise hire someone to deal with situation like this for me? That seems out of reach for most people.
All sorts of things are like that -- if someone sues you, they've imposed literally dozens of hours of work and thousands of dollars of expenses on you entirely without your say. You can delegate as much as you want to a lawyer, but you'll still need to gather documents, think about strategies, and of course pay your lawyer.
So how does one really truly say "no" to things & delegate undesirable tasks unless one has enough money to afford such delegation? I'm not sure I have a good answer to this one yet.
This question, with respect, has nothing to do with the article. The piece about Buffet applies to all the people on here who have a zillion side projects. What Buffet means by saying no is- same thing Jobs meant- don't do those things. Have a strategy and use the slow brain (Thinking Fast And Slow) to make decisions that are about going deep, not broad. Similar in part to Deep Work.
For annoyances, or things imposed on you, as described above, various Zen practices come to mind. Life is full of suffering, and obligation, and the most at peace simply acknowledge and fulfill them. The koan of the novice experiencing anger after the master disrupted a practice with a seemingly trivial action- with the master pointing out that he left it behind, it was the novice who carried it around, etc. Practice not thinking/worrying about whether you will get your luggage back. Make the calls, wait on hold, but don't worry. It will either happen or it won't. Objects are so commodified now, if you truly need a lost object, you can just buy another. The psychic angst is not worth it.
100% relate to this and I have joked to my wife that I need an assistant. My wife is an essential worker whose job stayed in-person and got busier with COVID. I’m the software engineer sitting at home. Within a month I’ve had car problems, appliance problems, mortgage problems, student loan problems, health insurance problems etc etc etc to the point I can’t even remember them all. Most of them not by my choosing. It feels like calling banks and contractors is my full time job and I check my work Slack as a hobby. It shows that the American way of life is pretty shitty even for the upper middle class. You either earn 7 figures or you struggle to some degree.
Yeah, there's something really discouraging about any sort of inversion of work that businesses push onto customers.
Self checkout lines. Dealing with interactive voice menus. Waiting on hold. Whatever.
It's like any time support doesn't fall neatly into one of several predefined buckets the burden of dealing with any ambiguity falls onto the consumer.
Maybe it increases their profits. Maybe it decreases our quantifiable costs. But it's exhausting.
It's not directly analogous but software folks often talk about the merit in using external libraries for anything that's not a core business concern. But I'm curious what grocery stores or airlines would consider their primary business. Are they in the service industry or are they trying to just be food or airplane logistics players who lament their current requirement for a customer-facing physical presence.
When you said “yes” to flying on that airline, with checked baggage, you said yes to a chain of other sub-yeses that could result in a given situation.
Learning the consequences of your “yes” for various things and what you’re willing to accept is how you can manage this in the future.
Google has a new feature on their android phones that will wait on hold for you and connect you when the agent finally picks up. Having waited 40+ minutes for zipcar twice in the last few months I'm somewhat excited about it. It seems like a gimmick, but also seems like a good form of automation that works in a lowest common denominator situation like telephone lines.
Wondering if this and things like it will help you address the automated assistant issue one problem at a time.
> I have to wait on hold. [...] How do we avoid this?
Hold really is awful. And it's gotten so much worse during covid. Re how do we avoid this: for starters, there should be laws against companies putting people on hold without providing a callback option. As far as I can tell there's no reason not to offer a callback option except to screw over your customers who aren't willing to wait on the phone and listen to their awful hold music for an hour straight to save some money on customer support and prevent your unwilling customers from cancelling. (BTW while we're at it, there should also be laws allowing anyone to cancel a subscription service online. California partially does this by requiring an online cancellation option when the subscription was started online.)
I think you are dismissing another avenue you could take (even if I doubt it would be successful): bill them or send them an invoice.
- bill for your time at a reasonable (previously established), rate. This is if you want to get your stuff back.
- send an invoice for the missing luggage (itemized even). This is for the case where you don’t care about the stuff and just want to be compensated.
If I screwed over a company, they wouldn’t hesitate to bill me. I wish we as consumers would do the same instead of freely spending our time.
There is bound to be a certain amount of hassle involved in flying across continents. Seems like you've got extra this time but you can still trace it back to your decision to say yes to doing it.
Obviously my advice doesn't pertain to your main point, but as a person who's been to 80+ countries, and very experienced with this, my advice is only use carry on, it's not worth the risk. Buy the biggest bag you can that's allowable as a carry on and use that. I've had only a carry on whilst travelling for 7 months straight, and it worked out fine for me, pack light and wash your clothes at your hotel/airbnb.
I guess there are things that are inevitable, the trick is not to try to completely eliminate them as that is impossible. However the optional ones could be eliminated if one has some practice of doing the trade-off analysis and perhaps deliberate poverty practice, and with some luck could become wealthy enough to be able to delegate even the most difficult to eliminate tasks to one's assistant.
- avoid flying
- avoid checking bags
- avoid putting items in checked bags that you care about
These are all subtle ways of saying “no”.
Clothing is so cheap now that if you’re taking a 2-week trip you’d be better off buying clothing at your destination and throwing it out at the end instead of paying for checked luggage on your flights.
I own a business. If I was to do a full inventory, I would probably find I'm in the possession of tens of thousands of items. I'm currently in the situation where something breaks daily. It has forced me into being very picky. I no longer buy things, if I can avoid it. Every thing I buy has the potential of being a problem down the line that will require time and attention. Even disposing of broken things can be a big hassle. If I do buy something, brand new, I will take a close look at it and think about how it will fail. And try to reinforce those failure points.
Minimalism is definitely a valid strategy, at large scales.
This advice applies directly to software. Bring in more dependencies, bring in more custom tooling, and you're bringing in more maintenance burden. There will be bugs. Make sure you really need that shiny new framework.
I have a very, very different definition of success than Warren Buffett does.
I say yes to as much as I can, and my life has been extremely fun and interesting as a result. If I could do it again, I'd say yes more and I'd say yes faster.
I totally agree with this. I have 3 kids, 2 jobs... But, I find that taking an "abundance view" towards time truly makes me happier. I have way more fun and do better work. I do rush and hurry for deadlines.. But I don't feel harried in my day to day.
I see way too many people limiting their own growth because they see themselves as focusing. I personally think playing around is critical — and that we have way more time than we think.
Related: why is it that we think we don't have time to work out, but almost always, whenever we do exercise, the efficiency of work skyrockets?
I've done the opposite with an equally rewarding outcome. I used to say yes to so much just because of FOMO and social pressure. I then realized I actually didn't want to do any of that stuff and didn't have to. I'm finally happy and content with life.
I wish more people would understand that everything that devides us as humans leads to destruction. Everything that unites us leads to good things, which I call success.
"The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything."
That's very different. This is a message that is useful to hear for extremely driven ambitious people who are already successful - that it's better to spend all the time you spend working on a few carefully chosen things. It should not be interpreted as advice for people who are not extremely driven to not do things. The baseline assumption is that you already spend a substantial amount of time working on potentially productive things.
The important thing to keep in mind here is that Buffett is talking about "saying no to almost everything" when you are already successful. Not when you're actually still in the process of becoming successful.
The rules are different there, although of course Jobs' quote about focus, I think, applies to both situations, to some extent.
I think this is misleading advice. I'm sure it's true that when you have amazing opportunities thrown at you at every turn, it's important to stay true to your mission and be deliberate in choosing which ones to pursue. That being said, if you're just starting your career and have limited options and someone gives you an opportunity that is good but perhaps not in perfect alignment with what you ultimately want to achieve / do, you should probably still say yes.
In other words, I would say that you should start your career saying yes to everything and end your career saying no to everything with some type of smooth interpolation between the two states.
That may be, but it may not be a causal difference.
Steve Jobs may have had to say no a lot, but that may be because he was presented with a lot of opportunities; opportunities that are less available to less successful people. I also imagine Steve Jobs didn't have a lot of time available.
And I've read his biography. He didn't strike me as a man that said no very much when he was younger.
Internet comment sections hate nuance and critical thinking (yes, even HN, we just put lipstick on that pig by being polite and kicking out snarky comments) so it's not surprising they love rules of thumb (which are nearly the polar opposite of applying critical thinking and considering nuances).
I can barely recall a time in my life where saying 'no' to an exploding offer resulted in regret.
I'm not sure when I learned this 'power'. I don't think it should be a power, but I know way too many people who don't have it, and watched a number of them go through a bunch of bad excitement followed by regret.
If it's not someone including you in a spontaneous social activity at the last minute, just say no. They know that if you have time to think about it you'd realize it wasn't that great, which is exactly why they aren't giving you time to think about it. It's an attempt to evoke the same feeling of scarcity you experience when your buddy says, "Hey there are only three beers left. Who wants one?" to a room full of people.
I am one of those people who struggle to say no. Just this year, I consciously started saying "no" to people more frequently because I was getting overstretched with commitments and knew I needed to stop.
So far I have never regretted saying "no" to something (even though I suspected I might regret it at the time). But I have frequently regretted saying "yes" to something.
By saying no to more things, it allows you to have more time to do a good job at the few things you say "yes" to. Plus there is a power in taking your life by the reins and not letting other people dictate what you do because you blanket accept everything they request of you.
Exploding offers... yeah. They come as "limited time offers" all the time. "Deal of a lifetime", even. It's amazing - once in a lifetime offers come every six months.
Just because someone says it's a once in a lifetime offer, it's still the exact same offer. The words "once in a lifetime" do not change the offer whatsoever. If the answer is no, it shouldn't become yes just because someone says "once in a lifetime".
> They say no to superficial networking events in which people swap business cards and never hear from one another. Why? Because successful people don't network. They build relationships.
I've felt for a long time that there is no such thing as "networking" as its own activity. You build a network by just having life experiences and interests- hobbies, clubs, other parents from school if you have kids, religion, volunteering, side projects, alumni associations, and of course people you've worked with in the past. These relationships need to have some sort of basis other than you wanting something like a job or opportunities.
Which is the opposite of what a lot of successful people do right - they take loads of risks. It feels as though when you take risks and put yourself out there you deserve the rewards (but I would say this isn't really true either). If you have millions of opportunities like Buffet does of course this statement makes a lot of sense.
I don't think applying Warren Buffet's aphorisms to life is a replicable strategy for success. Like most things making your own path is more important than even being successful in the terms that are important to Buffet or whoever really.
I'm not saying this is definitely intended, but it kind of bothers me that this title seems to imply "Saying no to almost everything might make you successful".
I used to work for a chip design company whose CEO would ask every for new product ideas at every annual sales meeting and said no to every one for 7 years straight. Now his product pipeline has run out of gas. His stock is in the toilet and new hires won't touch his company. Karma.
Successful people like Buffett are presented with opportunities constantly. There's some truth here, but his circumstances are radically different. That's why for people at the bottom the advice is to say yes to more things!
Honestly I think this is entirely counter-productive for anyone that's not mega-rich.
If you're Warren Buffet, of course you'll have a thousand offers and propositions a day and you have to say no to most of them and find that one gem.
If you're regular Joe (and, yes, that most likely includes YOU reading this) you can't afford to shut down most opportunities or you'll never get anywhere.
[+] [-] nlh|5 years ago|reply
I flew back from Europe on Wednesday, and the airline misplaced my luggage. To get it back, they've imposed a ton of steps on ME. "Here's your reference number. Call our customer support in 24 hours. Follow-up every day until you get it" is what I was told (and what I'll have to do).
It seems unfair that an act that was 0% my fault results in at least several hours of tasks for me. I have to follow-up. I have to wait on hold. I have to spend time thinking and wondering if my luggage will ever show up.
How do we avoid this? Getting angry doesn't work (trust me, they've been yelled at). Ignoring it doesn't work - no luggage will show up. So I guess the only real solution would be to have a personal assistant or otherwise hire someone to deal with situation like this for me? That seems out of reach for most people.
All sorts of things are like that -- if someone sues you, they've imposed literally dozens of hours of work and thousands of dollars of expenses on you entirely without your say. You can delegate as much as you want to a lawyer, but you'll still need to gather documents, think about strategies, and of course pay your lawyer.
So how does one really truly say "no" to things & delegate undesirable tasks unless one has enough money to afford such delegation? I'm not sure I have a good answer to this one yet.
Thoughts?
[+] [-] jonahbenton|5 years ago|reply
For annoyances, or things imposed on you, as described above, various Zen practices come to mind. Life is full of suffering, and obligation, and the most at peace simply acknowledge and fulfill them. The koan of the novice experiencing anger after the master disrupted a practice with a seemingly trivial action- with the master pointing out that he left it behind, it was the novice who carried it around, etc. Practice not thinking/worrying about whether you will get your luggage back. Make the calls, wait on hold, but don't worry. It will either happen or it won't. Objects are so commodified now, if you truly need a lost object, you can just buy another. The psychic angst is not worth it.
Cheers.
[+] [-] mobiledev2014|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] loosetypes|5 years ago|reply
Self checkout lines. Dealing with interactive voice menus. Waiting on hold. Whatever.
It's like any time support doesn't fall neatly into one of several predefined buckets the burden of dealing with any ambiguity falls onto the consumer.
Maybe it increases their profits. Maybe it decreases our quantifiable costs. But it's exhausting.
It's not directly analogous but software folks often talk about the merit in using external libraries for anything that's not a core business concern. But I'm curious what grocery stores or airlines would consider their primary business. Are they in the service industry or are they trying to just be food or airplane logistics players who lament their current requirement for a customer-facing physical presence.
[+] [-] squidlogic|5 years ago|reply
Learning the consequences of your “yes” for various things and what you’re willing to accept is how you can manage this in the future.
[+] [-] sporkland|5 years ago|reply
Wondering if this and things like it will help you address the automated assistant issue one problem at a time.
[+] [-] throwaway287391|5 years ago|reply
Hold really is awful. And it's gotten so much worse during covid. Re how do we avoid this: for starters, there should be laws against companies putting people on hold without providing a callback option. As far as I can tell there's no reason not to offer a callback option except to screw over your customers who aren't willing to wait on the phone and listen to their awful hold music for an hour straight to save some money on customer support and prevent your unwilling customers from cancelling. (BTW while we're at it, there should also be laws allowing anyone to cancel a subscription service online. California partially does this by requiring an online cancellation option when the subscription was started online.)
[+] [-] lolsal|5 years ago|reply
- bill for your time at a reasonable (previously established), rate. This is if you want to get your stuff back. - send an invoice for the missing luggage (itemized even). This is for the case where you don’t care about the stuff and just want to be compensated.
If I screwed over a company, they wouldn’t hesitate to bill me. I wish we as consumers would do the same instead of freely spending our time.
[+] [-] alimw|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomjen3|5 years ago|reply
Collect evidence for the exact amount of time you spent on this issue, then have a lawyer write a lawyer letter. If they don't pay, sue them.
Companies don't care about their minons getting yelled at. They care about getting sued.
[+] [-] loftyal|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] m463|5 years ago|reply
You know, like the flight crew you see walking in the airport.
[+] [-] msapaydin|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] antman|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] vb6sp6|5 years ago|reply
"are you available for coffee?"
"no, i need to call the airline about my luggage"
And now to have an extra hour or two in your day
[+] [-] amelius|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mslate|5 years ago|reply
- avoid flying - avoid checking bags - avoid putting items in checked bags that you care about
These are all subtle ways of saying “no”.
Clothing is so cheap now that if you’re taking a 2-week trip you’d be better off buying clothing at your destination and throwing it out at the end instead of paying for checked luggage on your flights.
[+] [-] jungletime|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dredmorbius|5 years ago|reply
-- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Airman's Odyssey
[+] [-] sixstringtheory|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jmnicolas|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Mizza|5 years ago|reply
I say yes to as much as I can, and my life has been extremely fun and interesting as a result. If I could do it again, I'd say yes more and I'd say yes faster.
[+] [-] dr_dshiv|5 years ago|reply
I see way too many people limiting their own growth because they see themselves as focusing. I personally think playing around is critical — and that we have way more time than we think.
Related: why is it that we think we don't have time to work out, but almost always, whenever we do exercise, the efficiency of work skyrockets?
[+] [-] Kiro|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thdrdt|5 years ago|reply
Money as metric for success leads to destruction.
Someone who helps a stranger is successful.
I wish more people would understand that everything that devides us as humans leads to destruction. Everything that unites us leads to good things, which I call success.
[+] [-] Mvandenbergh|5 years ago|reply
"The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything."
That's very different. This is a message that is useful to hear for extremely driven ambitious people who are already successful - that it's better to spend all the time you spend working on a few carefully chosen things. It should not be interpreted as advice for people who are not extremely driven to not do things. The baseline assumption is that you already spend a substantial amount of time working on potentially productive things.
[+] [-] pferde|5 years ago|reply
The rules are different there, although of course Jobs' quote about focus, I think, applies to both situations, to some extent.
EDIT: Grammar.
[+] [-] pontus|5 years ago|reply
In other words, I would say that you should start your career saying yes to everything and end your career saying no to everything with some type of smooth interpolation between the two states.
[+] [-] bad_user|5 years ago|reply
Steve Jobs may have had to say no a lot, but that may be because he was presented with a lot of opportunities; opportunities that are less available to less successful people. I also imagine Steve Jobs didn't have a lot of time available.
And I've read his biography. He didn't strike me as a man that said no very much when he was younger.
[+] [-] abhv|5 years ago|reply
VCs like to brag about the "deals they missed" just to remind you that they were in the room where it happened, but then left the room.
[+] [-] robertlagrant|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwaway0a5e|5 years ago|reply
Internet comment sections hate nuance and critical thinking (yes, even HN, we just put lipstick on that pig by being polite and kicking out snarky comments) so it's not surprising they love rules of thumb (which are nearly the polar opposite of applying critical thinking and considering nuances).
"say no to X"
"say yes to X"
"always do X"
"never do X"
Etc. etc. etc.
[+] [-] Austin_Conlon|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] christophilus|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hinkley|5 years ago|reply
I'm not sure when I learned this 'power'. I don't think it should be a power, but I know way too many people who don't have it, and watched a number of them go through a bunch of bad excitement followed by regret.
If it's not someone including you in a spontaneous social activity at the last minute, just say no. They know that if you have time to think about it you'd realize it wasn't that great, which is exactly why they aren't giving you time to think about it. It's an attempt to evoke the same feeling of scarcity you experience when your buddy says, "Hey there are only three beers left. Who wants one?" to a room full of people.
[+] [-] jacurtis|5 years ago|reply
So far I have never regretted saying "no" to something (even though I suspected I might regret it at the time). But I have frequently regretted saying "yes" to something.
By saying no to more things, it allows you to have more time to do a good job at the few things you say "yes" to. Plus there is a power in taking your life by the reins and not letting other people dictate what you do because you blanket accept everything they request of you.
[+] [-] AnimalMuppet|5 years ago|reply
Just because someone says it's a once in a lifetime offer, it's still the exact same offer. The words "once in a lifetime" do not change the offer whatsoever. If the answer is no, it shouldn't become yes just because someone says "once in a lifetime".
[+] [-] waylandsmithers|5 years ago|reply
I've felt for a long time that there is no such thing as "networking" as its own activity. You build a network by just having life experiences and interests- hobbies, clubs, other parents from school if you have kids, religion, volunteering, side projects, alumni associations, and of course people you've worked with in the past. These relationships need to have some sort of basis other than you wanting something like a job or opportunities.
[+] [-] andy_ppp|5 years ago|reply
I don't think applying Warren Buffet's aphorisms to life is a replicable strategy for success. Like most things making your own path is more important than even being successful in the terms that are important to Buffet or whoever really.
[+] [-] jxramos|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] davegri|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] landgenoot|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joelthelion|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xupybd|5 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] tehjoker|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tn890|5 years ago|reply
If you're Warren Buffet, of course you'll have a thousand offers and propositions a day and you have to say no to most of them and find that one gem.
If you're regular Joe (and, yes, that most likely includes YOU reading this) you can't afford to shut down most opportunities or you'll never get anywhere.