The Word That Bought Me Back My Week

Last September, I sat down on a Sunday night and counted my commitments. Not work. Not family. Just the extra stuff. The things people had asked me to do and I’d said yes to.

A board seat at a nonprofit. A monthly lunch group that had stopped being fun two years ago. A committee for a golf tournament I didn’t even play in. A neighbor’s son’s business plan I’d promised to review. Two standing meetings for organizations I barely cared about.

I added up the hours. Fourteen a week. Fourteen hours of my life going to things that didn’t feed me, didn’t challenge me, and didn’t make me better.

My wife looked at the list and said, “You know you don’t have to do any of this, right?”

She was right. I’d just forgotten.

When you’re good at things, people ask you to do more things. That’s a compliment. But it’s also a trap.

Someone needs a treasurer for the club. You’re good with numbers. Someone needs help with a project. You’ve done it before. A friend starts a foundation and needs a board member. You can’t say no to a friend.

Each one is small. An hour here. A meeting there. But they add up. And the bill comes due in a currency nobody tracks: your energy, your time, and your ability to do the things that actually matter to you.

The surprise of slowing down isn’t having too little to do. It’s having too much—but none of it yours.

Before I say yes to anything, I ask myself three questions. Takes about ten seconds.

▸ Would I do this if it were tomorrow? Not in three months. Tomorrow. If the answer is no, I’m saying yes to a calendar slot, not to the thing itself. That’s a bad deal.
▸ Does this use me or include me? Some commitments want your name and your time but not your opinion. You’re furniture in a meeting room. If they don’t need my brain, they don’t need me.
▸ Will I resent this in three months? Resentment is the signal. If I can picture myself sitting in that meeting thinking “I don’t want to be here,” I already have my answer.

Most guys don’t have trouble saying no. They have trouble saying no without feeling guilty. Here are the phrases I actually use:

Short. Kind. Final. No long story. No apology tour. People respect a clean no far more than a guilty yes followed by half-hearted work.

I dropped the board seat. Wrote a short letter, thanked them, recommended someone to replace me. Took ten minutes.

I dropped the lunch group. Nobody noticed for two months. That told me everything.

I dropped the golf tournament committee and the standing meetings. Sent short emails. Got polite replies. The world kept spinning.

What I kept: a mentoring relationship with a young engineer who reminds me why I liked my career. One volunteer shift a month at a food bank—hands-on, no meetings, no committees. And a Saturday morning fishing group that’s been the best thing on my calendar for five years.

The stuff I kept has one thing in common: I look forward to it. If I have to talk myself into going, it doesn’t make the cut.

A friend of mine has a rule I stole. He calls it the “Thursday test.” When someone asks him to do something three weeks from now, he asks himself: If this were Thursday, would I want to go?

Not some distant Thursday. This Thursday. Because that’s what it’ll feel like when the day comes. The future always feels lighter than the present. But you live in the present.

Saying no isn’t selfish. It’s honest. A yes you don’t mean costs both of you. A clean no frees both of you.

Fourteen hours a week. That’s two full mornings. Or ten early evenings. Or a whole day and a half to read, build something in the workshop, take a drive, or sit on the porch and do nothing at all.

My wife says I’m easier to be around. I think she means I stopped coming home from meetings irritated and then pretending I wasn’t.

That Sunday night last September, I looked at the list and felt trapped. Now I look at my week and feel like it’s mine again.

Two letters. One syllable.

Try it.

— Walter