How to Say ‘No’ at Work and Save Time for Priority Tasks

A vast majority of us were raised with the belief that good people self-sacrifice to help others. We feel obligated to say ‘yes’ to others despite personal chaos. In the mix of things, hustle culture is a common, modern workplace practice that is finally showing its negative impact. 

The hustle culture phenomenon can be best visualized as hard work on steroids. The thought that you should take ice-cold showers at 5 AM, have multiple side gigs, and work over 12 hours daily may sound a bit much. It’s the belief that one cannot achieve success without sacrificing personal comfort and happiness. 

In reality, setting boundaries on how much you work is critical for your own sanity. And yes, you can become a successful professional with your personal boundaries in place. 

But let’s first establish the reasons for saying ‘No’ at work more often. 

Why is it Important to have Boundaries at Work?

While you don’t necessarily need to explain yourself for saying no to more work, here are some solid arguments for your own awareness:

Lower the Risk of Burnout

Most of us struggle when approached by managers or coworkers to accept more responsibility and achieve work-life balance. Whether or not to say yes creates a stressful dilemma because you don’t want to appear lazy or a non-team player. However, accepting work when you do not have the capacity can lead to higher chances of burnout.

According to the Work in America Survey of 2023, 19% of workers confessed their workplace is somewhat toxic, and 22% believed their work has harmed their mental health. 

If you want to read more about career burnout, read our article Career burnout and its effects on health: how to prevent it.

By saying no to work outside your capacity or scope, you can reduce work-related stress and stay healthy.

Improve Productivity

Prioritization is the first step in successfully achieving your goals. By properly choosing what you’ll channel your efforts into, you’re likely to make progress toward completing the essential tasks.  

With focused work, you’ll also be able to deliver error-free, high-quality work that you can be proud of.  

Avoid Anxiety

You’re being unfair to yourself by adding more work to a full schedule. You eventually take work to home to meet the deadlines. With pending tasks glaring at you, you may fall into time anxiety, a serious anxiety loop that affects your health and productivity. 

If you want to learn more about time anxiety and how to deal with it, check out our article Time Anxiety: what it is and how you can deal with it

Being selective and prioritizing your work is a great way to ensure you’re effectively managing your time rather than falling behind daily targets. 

How to Say ‘No’ at Work

Understand Your Workload

Start with analyzing your current job descriptions. What are you required to do each day, and what’s the importance assigned to each task?

Are you successfully able to fulfill your key deliverables each day? 

Understanding the components of your workload is crucial, as is assessing your manageable work volume. Since you’re the best judge of your ability to work under pressure, these thresholds should come directly from you. 

Get a Time-Tracker

A great way to study your daily schedule is to time your tasks and track yourself the whole day. Invest in an automated time-tracker that does the job for you. All you have to do is initiate it when you start working, stopping when you’re done. Go on and do the same for all your projects and subtasks. You’ll end up with a detailed map of what you do all day, and how much time is spent on which part of your day.

Having real-time data to analyze your daily schedule offers several benefits:

• You can better prioritize your schedule and make time for the most time-intensive tasks.
• You’ll be better organized before tackling each task.
• You’ll be more accountable for your time and spend it in productive pursuits.
• You can make precise estimates of your time and predict your work capacity. You may only say yes to added work if your schedule allows for it. You can do this by keeping your calendar open to others so that they’re not able to drop surprise bombs on you.
• You’ll be able to downright predict the consequences of accepting work outside your capacity. 

For example, spending 45 minutes to help with interviews will delay your client meetings for the next day. So you may have to delay your client meetings until after 2 days, should you choose to take up extra work.  This may encourage you to reevaluate and stick with your priorities.

• With a lucid workflow, you’ll approach work more logically and perform it with utmost attention to detail, improving productivity and quality.
• With improved clarity, you may be encouraged to single-task with focus rather than multitasking a cluster of tasks.
• You can see your work throughout the day, the hours you work, and spot any room for improvement. 

If you detect any time–robbing activities, you may work to eliminate them. Similarly, if you see yourself constantly working beyond your daily hours, you can negotiate for better overtime or ask management to keep rotating shifts for better allocation.  

Be Assertive

It’s not what you say but how you say it.

Establishing boundaries will not yield results unless you follow up with assertiveness. 

Set your limits and stay firm on them. If you find yourself making exceptions too often, you have boundary issues. If you’re loose with your boundaries, others will go a step further and exploit them. When you’re too passive, you’re considered a doormat and open to exploitation. 

To avoid this, be clear and concise when setting your boundaries to show you’re serious about them. Find your voice and carefully choose your words. Don’t be afraid to openly communicate and answer questions regarding your boundaries. Be your own advocate; this means speaking up when overwhelmed.  

Adopt a tone that’s honest, to-the-point and sure, giving others minimal margin to negotiate. In practical terms, this could mean signing out of work as soon as it’s 6 P.M or not responding to work emails during after-hours. 

Communicate Often

If you feel like your opinions are often ignored and people don’t take your boundaries seriously, now’s the time to communicate more. People who are introverts and sulk in silence instead of communicating their limits to their managers are frequently victims of work overload.

Enhancing your communication skills is key to articulating your thoughts effectively and establishing clear boundaries. Being open to talk about your boundaries indicates their importance to you. 

Effective and frequent communication can resolve underlying issues necessitating boundaries. Additionally, leading your interactions with clarity and respect can help you create a good rapport with your colleagues and managers. 

Delegate

There is no bravery in taking on piles of work that you can’t handle. Instead, foster a culture of delegating work that you feel is better suited to a subordinate or would help them learn new skills. 

If you’re unsure of delegating tasks to a colleague, get your supervisor on board. Ideally, consult your timesheet and ask the supervisor to reassign some of your tasks to someone who has capacity to accept more work. This way, delegation can come from the top and appear fair, mitigating the chances of being refused.

Delegating some tasks can help you focus on the most critical ones that need your utmost focus and expertise. 

Limit After-Hours Work

If you find yourself continuously working on weekends and after-hours, ask yourself why.

Is it because you’re a workaholic?

Are you burdened with too much load?

Have you failed to communicate your work limits? 

Whatever the reason may be, find it out and use it to put a stop to it. Being available after office hours is a sure-shot way to become a scapegoat for overwork. 

We advise setting an auto-reply to emails and notifications after work hours. Resist the urge to take work calls, and if possible, turn on the ‘do not disturb’ mode on the phone once you’re home. 

Additionally, when in the office, start packing up in the last 10 minutes of work. Reflect on your day, acknowledge your achievements, and make a to-do list for tomorrow. This will help you untether from the past and focus on the future. 

Leave Work in the Office 

It can be tempting to continue working if your laptop is sitting right next to you. You may find yourself bored after dinner, not finding anything exciting to watch on Netflix. This is when you may approach your laptop thinking, “It’s better to get a headstart for tomorrow since I’ve nothing better to do.” 

If you’re a workaholic and don’t mind working long hours, keep reminding yourself to create a work-life balance. Reach out to friends and family to create opportunities to socialize. Leave your laptop in the office, and don’t bring work files home. Turn off work notifications, and don’t take ‘quick’ work calls. 

Be accountable to yourself to make home life just about yourself, not work. 

Have a Push-Back Plan

Not everyone will respect your work boundaries, and that’s ok. Having self-respect does not mean you’re a diva. Boundaries are not set in stone; sometimes, extraordinary circumstances can require you to step out of your comfort zone to save the day. 

In such situations, keep a positive mind and a respectful stance. Workplaces can present unique and difficult situations that may ask for sacrifice. For example, you may have to work on weekends because a client pushed back the deadline. Or, you have to assume your colleague’s responsibilities until she returns from her maternity leave. In such situations, professional integrity demands you to be a team player and compromise for the sake of the greater good. 

However, there can be colleagues who habitually disregard your boundaries to test your patience. In such cases, you should not give in. Communicate your discomfort to your manager and request them to remind others of your boundaries. In any case, stay professional and don’t get involved in petty drama.  

Take Time Off

Doing a simple thing such as taking annual leaves can be effective in communicating that you have a life and limits. We strongly advise you to utilize those leaves to spend time recharging your batteries and making memories with your loved ones. 

Instead of working through sickness, take sick leave and focus on feeling better. Make your health a priority by designating time for daily workouts. Additionally, pursue your hobbies. For example, get enrolled in that data analytics course you’ve been wanting to take or take those pizza-for-two weekend classes with your partner. 

Taking time off is essential to rearrange your thoughts. When you return, you may find yourself bustling with renewed energy and higher productivity. 

‘No’- Do Yourself a Favor 

As we have discussed, setting respectful boundaries will do you more good than being a yes-man. Saying ‘no’ in the workplace involves creating healthy professional habits for yourself. These boundaries play a crucial role in maintaining productivity and happiness at work while also facilitating a better separation between your professional and personal life. 

Saying a blunt ‘no’ without possibly offending others may be tricky. But if you have real-time data to back up how packed your schedule is, you can make polite and professional refusals. For this purpose, get TimeBee to track your time and get insights on your workday. TimeBee takes the work out of tracking and lets you focus on achieving your goals.

In this article, we’ve offered practical suggestions for practicing how to say ‘no’ at work.

If you find it challenging to set limits and express your needs in the workplace, it’s essential to learn effective boundary-setting strategies.

After trying these strategies, if you still feel your boundaries are being violated, reevaluate whether it’s wise to stay in an insensitive workplace for a long time. 

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