Deep Dive Series: The Power of a Soft No
By Tana M. Mann Easton, Lead Efficiency Engineer
When in the midst of a particularly busy season, a soft no is a great method to move the timeline for requests from now to a time in the future.
If, for example, you have an all-consuming project at work and a colleague asks you to get together for coffee this week, a soft no would look something like this: “I’m working on a project right now that is consuming most of my time, but the deadline is at the end of this month. Could we schedule something for after that time?”
Or let’s say you’re in the middle of moving from one house to another, and a friend asks you to join her at an exercise class. A soft no could be, “Hey, I meant to tell you, but we’re actually moving across town! All of my free time is going to be devoted to that for the next few weeks, but let’s check in after that to see what we can schedule.”
A soft no should be used for requests that you can’t do right now, but you truly would like to do in the future. If the ask is something that you will never want to do, don’t use the soft no to kick the can into the future. Future you won’t appreciate either having to participate in an unwanted activity or to figure out a way to say no then. But for events and requests you would like to participate in, a soft no is a great way to push items from a busy time now to a freer time in the future.
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Sincerely Yours,
Focus to Evolve Team