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Your most precious resource is your time. Make protecting it a priority.
Warren Buffett. Illustration: Inc; Photo: Getty Images
Matthew McConaughey is a quick “no” but a slow “yes.” He trusts his instincts when he feels he doesn’t want to do something, but takes a week or two to decide if a soft “yes” should actually be a hard “yes.”
I’m the opposite; I’m a quick “yes” and a slow (eventually, when it’s too late) “no,” because yes is easy when the stakes are low. Appear on a real estate podcast three months from now? Plenty of time to work that into my calendar. Write a thousand-word foreword for someone’s book six months from now? I can do that in a couple of hours. Fly to Abu Dhabi next year to speak at a conference? Never been there; sounds fun.
“Yes” is easy when the delivery horizon feels like “someday.” Besides: You want to be nice. You want to be kind. You want to be accommodating.
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I like to think that, at least once in a while, I am all of those things.
But often to my detriment.
As Warren Buffett says, “The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything.”
According to Buffett:
People are going to want your time. It’s the only thing you can’t buy.
I can buy anything I want, basically, but I can’t buy time.
That’s why Buffett’s calendar isn’t filled with calls and meetings. He could easily fill his schedule, but he doesn’t; many weeks, only a handful of times are penciled in. As Bill Gates, Microsoft co-founder (and legendary memorizer of license plates), explains:
I remember Warren showing me his calendar. I had every minute packed and I thought that was the only way you could do things….
The fact that he is so careful about his time, he has days that there’s nothing on [his schedule]… [I learned] that you control your time, and that sitting and thinking may be a much higher priority than [being] a normal CEO, [where] there’s all this demand, and you feel like you need to go and see all these people….
It’s not a proxy of your seriousness that you’ve filled every minute in your schedule.
I love the last line. Just as butts in seats aren’t a proxy for productivity (that is, focusing on where your employees work, instead of whether they meet targets and deliverables), a full calendar isn’t a proxy for productivity.
Or effectiveness.
Granted, efficient people do check things off their to-do lists. They do complete projects. They do get things done.
Effective people do all that, but they get the right things done. They do what makes the biggest difference for their business and for themselves.
For me, in most cases, the right thing isn’t agreeing to appear on a real estate podcast. Or agreeing to write a book foreword for a person I don’t even know. Or agreeing to burn four days, when you factor in travel, to go to Abu Dhabi to speak. (Unless my wife comes along and we do the old work-trip/vacation double-dip.)
If you’re struggling to achieve what you want to achieve, take a step back and determine what really matters. Determine what really drives results.
In most cases, what really drives results is you: your time, your effort, your creativity, your decisions. So stop thinking your presence is necessary in every meeting and every call. Stop thinking a full calendar is a proxy for productivity.
Stop thinking quiet time — free time — is wasted time. See it as time to think. To make better decisions. To strategize and plan. See an open calendar as an opportunity, not a liability.
While you shouldn’t say “no” to everything, you should say no to a lot more things.
Because reflexively saying “yes” — no matter how well-meaning or even generous your intentions — may be what is keeping you from turning your dreams into realities.
