Some days, you know exactly what you need to do, but you allow other things to ‘creep in’.
Perhaps it’s a few emails, or a quick conversation.
Then the little ‘extra thing or two’ somehow become 10, 20, or 40.
Suddenly you turn around, and the day is over … and you haven’t completed the 3 or 4 main things you knew you needed to do at the outset.
That’s happened to all of us. (Well, at least most people I know.)
There is another option: you can say ‘no’.
You can make a conscious decision early in the morning to remain vigilantly aware of this ‘creep-in’ phenomenon and say ‘no’ to it (politely) whenever it begins.
There’s always time later on for those emails.
There’s never time later for meaning projects.
Matt Fried 