When I was younger and sort of just starting out, I thought this way. My boss had given me a set of goals to work on, so I would focus on these goals to the exclusion of everything else. If somebody came and asked for help, I'd tell them I didn't have time to help, because I was busy focusing on the stuff that I was <i>supposed</i> to be doing.<p>What I found, the hard way, is that all of those people I refused to help badmouthed me behind my back, and I got a reputation for being unhelpful (which was fair, because I was!). Come review time, all of this negative feedback was a big topic of conversation.<p>Finally I got the hint and did a complete 180 - if somebody asked for my help, at any time, I dropped everything and focused on helping them. I fell behind on what I was "supposed" to be doing, but I also kept close track of where the interruptions were coming from, just in case.<p>Now, come review time, my boss didn't even seem to care that I never met any of my goals, and talked on and on about what a great reputation I had. One boss after another, consistently, every time.
Derek Sivers has published an interesting book about this, called "Hell Yeah or No" [0].<p>[0]: <a href="https://sive.rs/n" rel="nofollow">https://sive.rs/n</a>
> We want to be the type of person that helps someone. But saying yes carries a cost. One that’s often paid in the days, weeks, or even years in the future. What starts as a single meeting becomes a weekly one...<p>There's a delicate balance here, because saying "no" often carries a cost too, it's just less visible than the cost of saying "yes." Saying "no" too often can mean missing opportunities for relationships, projects, promotions, vacations, etc. But since we never see those things, it's easy to think saying "no" was free.
> Saying no is like saving your money in the bank, whereas saying yes is spending it.<p>The bank pays lousy interest payments that usually don't keep up with inflation. Spending it on things that save you time in the future pays huge dividends. Most places don't invest in boosting productivity. I don't know if it's Cloud-think (horizontal scaling) or if I'm just imagining that it's gotten worse over the years.
My experience has been to say "yes" to everything in early career when you are not in demand. Then slowly transition to saying "no" as your career develops. The transition point from "yes" to "no" is when you develop more unique and valuable skill sets.<p>When all you have to offer is energy, excitement, and smarts - "yes" opens doors, creates relationships, and gives you opportunities to learn. That's how you grow, not only in career, but in relationships.<p>After you can bring more differentiated value to an opportunity, you're going to be in more demand and need to filter the best use of your time and energy.<p>The Steve Job's part is absolutely correct when you are sitting in Steve Jobs' position. As a thought experiment, probably every Fortune 500 CEO would want to have a 1-2 hr meeting with Jobs circa 2008. That would be 500-1000 hours of meetings where arguably <i>they</i> would derive more value than he would. So while it would be insane for most to pass up on these meetings, he obviously would need to.<p>Don't confuse the "yes" vs "no" periods of your life.
I really regret helping people and taking on external work. For me it comes down to interviews for your next job (which realistically is the best chance for promotion).<p>When they're asking you coding quizzes and examples of being productive, all the times you helped out doing annoying paperwork, support calls and bug hunts count for nothing. They can be useful for some stories but not much.
I say learn to say yes first, then learn to say no. Saying no to everything because you think you can't do something is going to result in an extremely boring life. Find your limits first, you probably are capable of doing more than you think.
It's a tightrope.<p>I used to work for a "NO" at almost any cost guy. He ended up shouting at me (and I shouted back) over a literal "this will take me exactly five minutes in SQL if I am being lazy about it" request that he said the requestor should have asked for two weeks ago, and they ought to have to wait. Now, at the end of his career, he works as an assistant (to someone who is almost an assistant themselves), where once he was the head of the department. He worked pretty hard for that reputation and it eventually caught up with him. Of course, it was still a ding on my review at the time but whatever.<p>On the other hand, too much "yes" can keep you away from your actual duties, you end up greasing a lot of wheels instead of making formal fixes, and you can saddle yourself with a lot of obligations from what you <i>thought</i> were one-off deals. You can be mired in place by a spider's web of dotted-line relationships, and often yes to one person, right now, means that someone else's possible yes gets blocked and you get problems from there. And, frankly, you can end up doing work better suited for someone else. That road ends up in being taken advantage of.<p>My only "solution," such as it is, is not to maintain <i>just</i> a middle stance, but to slightly vacillate back and forth from it, as time and your mood allows. This can cause people to actually evaluate whether or not <i>you</i> are the person who needs to do this. If you start gathering up all kinds of extra responsibilities, those need to be communicated, first verbally and then in writing, in numerous directions.<p>Tightrope walkers do not stay <i>exactly</i> in the middle, but move slightly back and forth to maintain balance, and that is what I advocate.
I find that this applies much broader than just work projects.<p>Example: HN articles. I used to scroll through the front page, open every article with a remotely interesting sounding title in a new tab, usually another tab next to it with the HN discussion that I'd read after reading the article and where I'd keep reading quite a while after being done with the article. That's bad. Once I started prioritizing I'd have much more time for meaningful things. Saying no to reading comments about something I actually didn't care that much about. Saying no to actually finishing reading an article that I didn't really like that much. Saying no to even opening an article just because the title suggested it "could" be interesting but not really my cup of tea.<p>A recent new strategy of mine is to first scroll through the list and then pick the article with the most promising title. Saying no to everything else. I may have missed really good stuff, but the payout is fantastic.
No.<p>To this article.<p>If we all weren't taught the skill 'focus' in our early toddler years we wouldn't be able to read or write a single sentence here.<p>No. To Jobs, the bullshitter.<p>And after this little break and business administration fans bullshit, let's get back to understanding why the FFT is so practical when multiplying polynomials. Still don't get it 100%... still looks like magic to me... :)
Not a lot of concrete advice here to be honest<p>> While yes is easy to say, it’s hard to live.<p>Things like this just don’t mean a whole lot. Maybe it’s helpful to people that need to hear it though.
I think there's a more nuance here. Focus is saying no -- agreed. Giving help increases surface area for serendipity and opportunity -- agreed. I don't see these as being mutually exclusive.
Question about FS: I took a look at the root site, and it appears FS advertises values i have been seeking to improve. Thought patterns, knowledge, etc. They have book content, and paid podcasts.<p>With that said, can anyone comment on how good the content of FS is? Is their content worth buying? Is their content worth consuming?<p>Opinions would be appreciated. So far i like what they advertise, so i'm curious how it holds up to scrutiny.
Bad incentive structures prevent this ... root cause is in many scaled up systems of people, optics (appearances and visibility) are what you are judged by, as there is zero accountability or metrics in place other than how you make the decision makers feel about you, so focusing and delivering results is actually not what is rewarded! Basically all human systems at scale have this problem, consider politics. And you don't even get a seat at the table if you opt-out of the game. You either have to play or you can create your own bubble universe, like a startup, and do everything yourself, unless of course you want investors ...
As everything else in life it's a matter of balance and how you get your message across. You don't want to be the ass who never helps people if it's not his direct task. But then you also don't want to a pushover who lets himself constantly being distracted. I have done both.<p>I think most important is to be clear and compassionate when you say "No".
This one from a few years ago covers similar aspects<p><a href="https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.intercom.com/blog/product-strategy-means-saying-no/%3Famp" rel="nofollow">https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.intercom.com/blog/product-s...</a>
There's a lot of nuance here. what to say No to? What are costs of saying No? How to say NO? e..g "No, never" vs "not right now".<p>There are a lot of opportunities that don't reveal themselves in the moment. Say no to those and you'll miss a lot of upside.
Similarly Warren Buffet's '2-list strategy' drove this point home for me.<p>[0] <a href="https://jamesclear.com/buffett-focus" rel="nofollow">https://jamesclear.com/buffett-focus</a>
What this entire thought is missing is that you need to have a idea you're saying yes to.<p>This is about prioritisation more than it's about focus.
The comments here reminds me that post where everybody was saying it was terrible writing and not sure if it even meant anything ; then later came an article "IA wrote an article and nobody at HN noticed" revealing the IA-writing was in fact heavily edited