How to be the goalkeeper of your time?

Video Transcript

Emily: The important lesson I’ve learned as a leader is saying no. I think you always as you’re coming up in your career, you say yes, you want to accept more projects, and take on more things, and get more responsibility. And it can be to your detriment at a certain point and so saying no to things, or saying not right now, prioritizing things is incredibly important for your productivity, but also for mental health.

I think a lot of that is providing visibility into all the other projects that we’re working on, all the other ways that we are helping. I always say “Yes, I can do this, but if I do, I’m gonna have to bump something else off my list. So if you’d like to go through my list and tell me what I don’t need to work on right now then maybe we can have that conversation”. But using yourself as the goalkeeper really of your time and your schedule is incredibly important. And I think the more that you do that and set expectations with people, they really respect it.

I am very strict about deadlines. I’ve always give myself a couple of days of cushion and say okay, I’ll get this to you by next week knowing I can probably do it by Monday. But because of that I always deliver things on time. So when you have that trust with your end customers, my account executives (AE), myself, my directors, all of them. They know I’m going to deliver on time. They can be be okay when you say “Not right now” because they know when it does come around I will do it and I will do it right.

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