Believe it or not, you have the right to say no. I learned not to attend meetings where I provided no value-add, or there was nothing that I could get out of it. I learned to hanlde my email in such a way that I did not manage by email, but rather, organized into action, waiting and reviews. I had specific periods of the day where I took care of action items, review items and following up on waiting items. I use a customizable methodology on “getting things done”. I do not believe in mutli-tasking. I recognize that the time transfer it takes to move from one work item to another is approximately 15 minutes. I recognize the inefficiency of the same.

Now, I had all the same excuses that you are going to come up with. “My whole life is communication through email. I can’t ignore emails that come in, because that’s how my users/customers communicate with me.” “I can’t say no to meetings because they are required, whether or not I want to go or need to go.” “If my boss tells me to switch what I am doing right now, I can’t just keep doing what I am doing.”

This is not true at all. When an email comes in, I take a quick look at it, and handle it according to my methodology. When my manager requires that I attend a meeting, I either say no or yes. If he questions why, I tell him/her. When my manager wants me to immediately address something I am not working on, I let him or her know the impact of stopping what I am doing now and addressing the new priority. If warranted, I switch to the new task. Many times, resource managers do not understand the impact of constantly switching between tasks, and they don’t fully understand the real priority of what you are working on.

Further, the last place I worked (outside of being a consultant) required that I have a balanced life as part of my performance plan. I had to demonstrate it as well. I didn’t do to well, and I actually was put on a performance plan to work through the balanced lifestyle requirement. One thing that is scientifically clear is that when we don’t balance our life, we are actually much more ineffective and inefficient at work than we would be otherwise.

Our generation (GenX) prides ourselves on our work ethic and our abilities professionally. However, we are doing a disservice to ourselves and to our organizations by allowing ourselves to be completely reactive rather than proactive. You would actually be of greater value to your organization if you learned to say no, learned to manage who can see you when, who can talk to you when, and what you do when. Take control of your life; stop allowing your environment to control it.

The company will see a better ROI on employing you than you are currently providing.

* I’m using a rating system that reflects how many seconds I let it play before I smash my PC speakers into oblivion