PART 3

11: Learn to say NO to non-essential tasks.

This is central to time management.

And yet, by constantly watching the screen during the trading day, all while taking calls and emails (see the “NO Multitasking”) rule, you’re saying “yes” to too much.?

Ever had a text come in right while you’re in the middle of an important process?

?A phone call?

A once-in-a-lifetime Instagram video?

No!

Are you on Gilligan’s Island???

Even then, the professor had rigged coconuts and the old transistor radio to interrupt.

Try saying NO across a day to all the things that are both not urgent and not important; move them to the next day. As you say no, write them down.?

Across the day, I can guarantee you that things you dealt with on email, text, or phone could have, perhaps 90% of the time, been dealt with AFTER the work day, OUTSIDE of your “Pomodoro” time (which should be sacred) and perhaps even delegated.

Suppose you spend the typical 2 hours per day answering emails and the typical 2 hours per day on social media.?? That’s 20 hours per workweek.?

According to a Wall Street Journal report (May, 2023), the typical worker spends TWO DAYS per week in meetings and answering emails.

If you work for someone else, meetings are probably unavoidable, even the useless ones (though if you actually RUN the meetings, you should consider that…). Take a survey of all the emails you review and respond to across a day and consider the % to which you could have said NO.

Back in the late 1980s, I recall my father taking the phone off the hook during dinner (this was before we got the answering machine). His rationale was it was the one hour or so he’d like to be undisturbed.? If it were a true emergency, they’d call back at 7:30, when he put the phone back on.?? Later, with the answering machine on, we’d be able to identify, within the first couple seconds, if it was truly an emergency.?? I think only ONE TIME in two years, we picked up (my cousin had a flat tire).

There’s ALMOST ZERO EXCUSE to pick up a call in the middle of your Pomodoro time these days—there is nothing that cannot wait 25 minutes.

By saying NO, you not only create multiple 25 minute periods of time to get stuff done (that could include 25 min a day to check your emails).