Happy Monday, Total No folks! Today we’re revisiting a popular post from June 2023, on what to say when you need to protect your time from pushy people. If you’re spring-cleaning your schedule, you may notice that without direct attention, the time we find often disappears immediately. We sometimes waste it ourselves on ridiculous activities but also, lots of folks will want to immediately fill that time with activities of their own desiring. Total No on that one! This post offers some scripts and suggestions for stopping that cycle. I hope you have a great week and happy keeping-your-time-for-you!
In this excellent Dear Prudence column on Slate, guest writer Dan Kois says a brilliant thing about making choices:
“You say you’re looking for a way to reframe your thinking. How about this for a frame: You’re going to die someday, whether from old age or being ingested by a gelatinous cube. Why should you spend hours and hours with people you don’t like, doing things you don’t enjoy?”
Amen. Time is precious. Please spend it doing things that bring you joy, with people you want to hang out with.
Where we tend to run into problems is how, exactly, to do this. There are a lot of competing demands on our time- work, family, friends, pets, health, chores, commutes, and so on. We frequently consciously choose to use some of our time doing things that we don’t really want to do but need to do, like going to the dentist or cleaning the bathroom. Most people also lose a lot of time in activities that they don’t consciously choose to do, like scrolling social media for an hour. Why do you need to look at vacation photos of the guy who sat behind you in French class sophomore year? You don’t. There is no need to spend time doing this. Please stop doing this. Please put your phone down right now and walk away. It’s a complete waste of your one wild and precious life, to quote Mary Oliver. You deserve much better than mindless swiping of information that does not matter to you in any substantive way.
With that simple change, you’ll already get a lot of time back. Now- how to protect your time. In earlier posts, we went over a few ideas for how to get out of things you are invited to but don’t want to attend. I hope you’re using those already with great success! Here are some other scripts and phrases that might come in handy for a variety of other situations. Protect your time and your own well-being and see if it changes how you feel.
Things you can to say to yourself:
Do I actually want to be doing this right now?
How do I feel as I’m doing this?
How else could I address that feeling? Example: if you’re scrolling because you’re bored, what else could you do instead that would actually add value and joy to your life?
What else could I be doing right now? Do any of those things sound like more fun? Ok, let’s try doing that thing instead.
This thing that I’m doing (mindless scrolling, wandering around a mall, standing in line for a coffee you don’t want) isn’t actually how I want to use my time. Let’s back out and think for a while. Then do the action that lets you back out: put your phone down, exit the mall, leave the coffee shop.
That’s during my exercise time/bedtime with my children/outside of normal work hours, so I’m not going to attend.
It is okay to decide to not check or respond to work communications outside of designated work time.
It is okay to block off time for myself and things I want to do.
Time for myself is important.
I need to respect my free time as much as I respect other items on my calendar.
I won’t get this time back. What do I want to do with it?
Is this a person I actually want to spend time with?
Is this an activity I actually want to do?
It’s up to me what I do with my time. Other people don’t get to decide that for me.
Things you can say to other people:
Oh, no thank you.
I already have plans.
I’m not available for that event/activity/conversation.
That’s family time for me.
I have another meeting at 2PM, so I can’t stay past that.
I have a hard stop at 2PM, so we’ll need to make sure we’ve covered the essential items by that time.
I’m swamped- I won’t be able to help/meet/edit your resume.
I’m working on something right now, I can’t chat.
I’m going to get back to *whatever activity makes sense here*.
What is this request about? Feel free to decline requests that you don’t want to go to, like poorly defined coffee meetings to “pick your brain” about something.
I don’t schedule meetings before 9AM.
My scheduled doesn’t allow for *whatever request you don’t want to deal with*.
That’s not a commitment I can make.
It’s a no for me.
No.
This isn’t working for me.
This isn’t something I’m interested in.
I’m taking a break.
I would love to, but my plate is really full right now.
I can’t help with that right now.
I appreciate the invitation, but I'm not interested in participating.
Please stop.
I'm not sure. I’ll get back to you once I've had a chance to think about it.
I need more time to think before I make a decision.
I don’t have the time.
I’m not able to *whatever request you don’t want to deal with*.
Let’s change the subject.
This decision has already been made, and you’ve made your thoughts known. I’m not up for discussing it any further.
If you can use at least some of these, I suspect you’ll see a big change in how you feel and what you do with your time. Fingers crossed for lots of newly discovered time filled with meaning and joy!
Love the examples! Your writing helps me so much. TY!