Other methods of saying no include planting preemptive seeds, emphasizing how you are tied to other people and can’t act independently, reflecting and acknowledging, referencing the fact that you can’t do everything at once, resisting the moment where you want to insert an addendum or caveat, creating hoops for people to jump through and themselves say yes to, baiting and switching with related or unrelated tasks, keeping it nonpersonal and focused on the specific circumstance, and passing the buck to someone who appears to be able to solve the problem at hand much better than you.

Continue reading “Let’s Shoot Some Hoops!”