The power of saying "NO"

“The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say ‘no' to almost everything.”

— Warren Buffett

If you say YES to everything that come to your way or in your life, you will become a slave of the life, you will lose your control over your life and your time.

“No price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.”

— Nietzsche

To become successful in your career and in your life, you have to focus on meaningful work and avoid unnecessary disturbances and unnecessary work that will kill your time.

“The art of leadership is saying no, not yes. It's very easy to say yes.” — Tony Blair

One of the clearest signs of poor leadership is the inability to focus — it's easy to say yes and it's very hard to say no.
It's not so much what you do but rather what you don't do that matters.

“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 clever ideas that there are. You must pick carefully. I’m 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

To Achieve more, we do more busy work, but we're doing less real work. To get any real work done we come in early, stay late, or both. That’s the only way we can get some peace and quiet.

To do more, we end up doing less.

"when you find yourself in a hole the best thing to do is stop digging."-click here

By failing to think about how we’re working, we only end up burning ourselves out. Stop doing the busy work and start spending your time adding value to yourself, your clients, your co-workers, and your friends and family. Focus on what’s important and eliminate the rest.

Before doing anything, ask yourself, “Is this necessary?” And if it's not necessary, ask yourself “Why you're doing it?”

In the book  Meditations, Marcus Aurelius writes:

"Most of what we say and do is not essential. Eliminate it, you'll have more time and more tranquility. Ask yourself, is this necessary."

John Maynard Keynes in the book The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, 

“Worldly wisdom teaches that it is better for reputation to fail conventionally than to succeed unconventionally.”

No, one wants to be unconventional. No, one wants to be different.

People should follow the advice of Aurelius — 

"It's not that difficult, it's common sense. It just looks difficult because it's unconventional."

tempting to think that to be a valuable team player, you should say “yes” to every request and task that is asked of you. People who say yes to everything have a lot of speed. They're always doing stuff but never getting anything done. Why? Because they don't think in terms of velocity. Understanding the difference between speed and velocity will change how you work.

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Thanks & Regards,

Mahesh