Saying no

Do you have five minutes for a quick chat?

— Pretty much everybody

Many things present themselves as “quick”, but that’s often a lie. The quick, five-minute chat with yout colleague opens the door to a full-day debugging session, and the phone call that was supposed to be less than thirty minutes ended up distracting you for the entire morning.

Seemingly trivial things take a lot more time and energy than what it might initially seem, and they linger around as distractions.

3 hours or nothing.

A good rule to follow is to never agree to anything unless you’re willing to spend three hours on it. This way, the opportunity cost of how you spend your time becomes a lot more visible, and your priorities clearer.

Let’s save our time for what’s really important, everything else can wait.