Chapter 9 Volunteering a Little Less—and Liking It

The ever-growing array of widely available office technology provides you the opportunity to do far more in a day than your predecessors of yesteryear. Concurrently, it also gives your boss and organization the opportunity to get and expect more from you. You used to be able to generate a handful of letters each day, if you were lucky. Now, with a few keystrokes, you can crank out 1,000 letters and still have time to work yourself to exhaustion before the end of the day.

The great paradox of today’s work environment is that the more you can do, the more is expected of you. Unfortunately, expectations about what you can accomplish rise immediately with the introduction of tools that facilitate greater accomplishment. This explains why you frequently feel squashed in the gears of your work life like a present-day version of Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times. Instead of working on a real assembly line with which you can’t keep pace, your “assembly line” is digital, byte-sized, and cyber-driven at nearly the speed of light.

You know you’re a good worker. You’re only too happy to help your organization in meaningful ways. Unfortunately, not all organizations make meaningful or reasonable demands.

Let’s explore how to further take charge of your turf and win back your time—starting with the vital challenge of managing your boss.

Managing to Manage Your Boss

Whole books have been written on this subject! Fortunately for you, I’m going to encapsulate them into the following single sentence:

There, I’ve said it. A gross oversimplification? Look around your organization. Who gets stepped on the most? Who is handled with kid gloves?

Generally, the office wimps get used as doormats, and those who are a bit more particular as to how their workday unfolds are treated with a tad more respect. The key to not having your boss consume the time in your life beyond the normal workday involves re-examining the issues discussed in Chapter 1, “I Know I Can Finish Most of This (If I Stay Late),” and learning some specific phrases that you can offer as needed. Read on.

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 Time Out! You don’t want to be an office wimp, a routinely unsung hero who’s asked (or is that commanded?) to perform great feats of productivity simply because you can, with no regard to your personal well-being and personal balance.

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Wanted: Workaholics We Can Deluge with Work

You’ve got this great position in this great organization; there’s only one itty-bitty little problem: Your boss is a workaholic and expects you to be the same. This situation requires great tact and professionalism because you’re not likely to change your boss’s nature. You are likely to be confronted with his or her workaholism and its effect on you. Here are key phrases that might help unstick you. (They work even better if your boss is not a workaholic!) Commit these to memory; in many cases it’s essential that your retort be automatic.

• “I’m overcommitted right now, and if I take that on I can’t do it justice.”
• “I appreciate your confidence in me. I wouldn’t want to take this on knowing my other tasks and responsibilities right now would prohibit me from doing an excellent job.”
• “I’d be happy to handle this assignment for you, but realistically I can’t do it without foregoing some other things I’m working on. Of tasks a and b, which would you like me to do? Which can I put aside?”
• “I can do that for you. Will it be okay if I get back to you in the middle of next week? I currently have a, b, and c in the queue.”
• “The number of tasks and complexity of assignments I’m handling is mounting. Perhaps we could look at a two- or four-week scenario of what’s most important to you, such as when the assignments need to be completed and what I can realistically handle over that time period.”

Even workaholic bosses are appreciative of your efforts on occasion. When the boss knows that you naturally work hard, he or she is not as likely to impose on you so often. A great time to make a sterling effort is when the boss is away. Most people follow the old adage, “When the cat’s away, the mice will play.”

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 A Stitch in Time If you’re the one who works hard when the boss is away, you help to convey a message that he or she doesn’t need to constantly keep heaping on assignments.

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Therefore, it behooves you to be the one who’s able to go into the boss’s office after he or she returns and say, “Here’s that big report you wanted. It’s all done.”

When the boss is outside the office, perhaps on travel or simply downtown on appointments, that’s when he or she is most likely to monitor who’s doing what back at the office. That’s when the boss calls in more frequently, inspects things a little more closely upon returning, and is more on-edge, knowing that most employees tend to slack off. Hence, this is your chance to shine, to teach this workaholic that you don’t need to be over-monitored—and to make great strides toward controlling your time.

Your Calendar and Your life

It’s a strange phenomenon: When you look at your calendar months in advance and there’s nothing scheduled, that’s when you fall into time-traps. Suppose Jim comes in and asks you to volunteer with him three months hence for a charitable cause he supports. You open your appointment book or look on your scheduling software and see there’s nothing going on that day. So you say, “Sure, why not?” You mark it dutifully on your calendar. You even intend to honor your commitment.

Two months pass. As you approach the date on which you promised Jim you’d volunteer, you notice that you now have responsibilities in and around it. A day or two before the time you’re supposed to help Jim, your schedule is jam-packed. Suddenly, Jim’s long-standing request looks like an intrusion. How dare he! Yet, when he asked and you agreed, it all seemed so harmless. All of which leads to Jeff’s Law of Defending Your Calendar, which states (among other things):

Why are you inclined to schedule tasks, responsibilities, and events for which you volunteer, but you aren’t inclined to schedule leisure-time activities, particularly those on a weekday after work? Hopefully, you have no trouble scheduling a vacation. What about scheduling calendar-pockets of fun, leisure, and relaxation throughout your week? You need to defend your calendar on a continual basis.

Now hold on, Bud. I’m not saying that volunteering to help someone isn’t worthwhile. On the heels of 5,000 other things you have to do, however, it may not be appropriate—or even feasible—for you to take on another task at this time.

Your life, as discussed in Chapter 1—as well as your career, year, month, workweek, and day—are finite. If you are similar to other professionals, your calendar essentially is your life—therefore, you need to defend it.

As an exercise, I suggest you go review old calendars and examine the appointments, activities, and tasks that you scheduled back then. You’ll gain perspective on how many things you scheduled that you could’ve done without. In reviewing my own prior calendars (before I got all this wisdom), I observed that 40–50 percent of my activities were nonessential. Some could’ve been cut given my knowledge of their results. Most, however, could be cut simply because they weren’t in accordance with my priorities and goals. I either yielded to the whim of the moment, or I hadn’t developed the ability to say no.

Ducking Out on Future Commitments

Here’s a quick list of techniques to help you determine whether you can safely avoid adding some future commitment to your calendar:

• Is it in alignment with your priorities and goals?
• Are you likely to be as prone to say yes to such a request tomorrow or next week?

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   Time Out! If you don’t defend your calendar, it will surely be filled in with all manner of “worthwhile activities.”

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• What else could you do at that time that would be more rewarding?
• What other pressing tasks and responsibilities are you likely to face around that time?
• Does the other party have other options besides you? Will he or she be crushed?
• Do you like him or her?
• If none of the above work, make your decision in three days hence, particularly when you can respond by phone, mail, or fax. It’s much easier to decline when you don’t have to do so in person.

Say No, but with Grace and Ease

The bigger your organization, the more requests you receive to attend or support various functions. If you’re an entrepreneur, a student, or a retiree, you still are likely to face a number of requests, the brunt of which are best handled with a polite “no.” With Joe’s retirement party, Megan’s baby shower, Kevin’s summer bash, Aunt Millie’s 64th birthday party, the Little League parade, and who knows what else, it would be easy for you to fill up your calendar and never get your job done—let alone do the things you want to do in life.

You don’t need to bone up on the teaching of Amy Vanderbilt, Letitia Baldrige, or Miss Manners to be able to say no with grace and ease. If you simply employ any of the following responses as they apply, you’ll be in great shape:

• The easiest technique you can use to decline a request is to say that your child’s birthday/recital/graduation/sex-change operation will be occurring at that time, and you couldn’t possibly miss it. This is not a lie; undoubtedly, your child will be doing something that merits your presence.
• Closely related is anything your family has planned. For example, “Oh, that’s the day our family is taking our annual fall foliage trip. We’ve been planning it for months, and the hotel reservations have already been made. I do appreciate your asking, however.”
• You may be able to work up enough guts to say, “You know, I’d like to, but I’m so overcommitted right now I couldn’t work it in and do it justice, or be fully attentive, or offer the level of support that I know you’d appreciate.”
• “I wish you had asked me a couple of days ago. I already committed that time to helping XYZ accomplish ABC.”
• “Could I take a rain-check on that one? I’ve been working myself dizzy lately, and I’ve scheduled that time to be with my . . . therapist . . . masseuse . . . mistress . . . bookie.”

If you have no legitimate prevailing circumstances, here are other possible responses:

• “Let me get back to you by tomorrow on that.” Tomorrow, use the aforementioned phone, mail, or fax to politely decline.
• Offer a gently worded “Thanks, but I’ll have to pass on that.”

Unglutting Yourself

You face so much that competes for your time and attention—perhaps a workaholic boss, an overfilled calendar, or scads of future commitments. You need to think about controlling the number of demands coming at you. Don’t volunteer to have others hit you with even more tasks that will compete for your attention. Do you open your intellectual kimono willy-nilly and permit newspaper, magazine, and newsletter publishers to sign you up?

The effect of all this is having too much to respond to, feeling overwhelmed, and having no sense of control over your time. The next time somebody calls with a highly worthwhile publication you can subscribe to, use what you’ve learned in this chapter to politely decline. In addition, the following techniques for handling magazine subscriptions may be of use to you:

• As each of your magazines subscriptions expire, don’t immediately renew. Wait two to three months to see if you actually miss having the magazine. If you don’t, then you’ve saved some money and a whole lot of time. You can always view several issues at a local library. Most importantly, recognize that in a society where information flows abundantly, no particular magazine (unless it’s highly specialized) is that crucial anymore.
• If, however, you do miss it, then resubscribe. The publication will take you back, I promise—in many cases, you’ll even get a better rate.

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   A Stitch in Time Without thinking, do you add your name to mailing lists, thereby openly surrendering yourself to more data and more offers? If you make yourself aware of which organizations or businesses sell their client or membership lists, you can avoid the mailing-list blues.

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• For the magazines you do receive, immediately strip them down; tear out or photocopy only those articles or passages that appear to be of interest to you. Then recycle the rest of the publication. (More on this in Chapters 11, “Filing: Your Simple Salvation,” and 12, “Neat and Uncomplicated Tools to Manage Your Time.”)
• One of the great benefits of having an online service is that you have the ability to quickly skim articles from dozens of publications; if they seem worthwhile, download and save them on hard disk. Then you can read them at will, without ever having to handle paper at all. After reading them, you can wipe them off your disk or keep them. Either way, you avoid glutting your physical systems—filing cabinets, desk drawers, and file folders.
• For existing subscriptions, experiment with giving away every second or third issue. Even chemists, engineers, and highly technical types agree they could skip every third issue of their technical publications and not be less informed; most periodicals have an inherent redundancy.
• Each year, many magazines publish a roster of all the articles that they featured in their final issue of the year. Such indices can be invaluable; you can highlight exactly which articles you would like to see.
• Some publications maintain a readers’ service, whereby you can order only the articles you desire.

Getting Off—and Staying Off—Mailing Lists

By extending the principles of reducing your magazine glut to your mail, you ultimately can save even more time. To get off—and stay off—mailing lists, write to the addresses listed here and ask to be removed from the list. Those organizations represent some of the most formidable mailing lists in the United States.

Some strategies follow; you can use them to ensure that your name is removed from the mailing list(s). Some of them may seem like a lot to do, but once you get rolling, the peace of mind and time savings you reap from having less junk mail cross your path will be well worth the effort!

• When you write to these organizations, include all variations of your name, such as Jeff Davidson, Jeffrey P. Davidson, Jeffrey Davidson, J. Davidson, J. P. Davidson, and so on; do this for all others in your household for maximum effectiveness.
• Thereafter, write to the organizations at least once every four months with a follow-up reminder; any purchase you make by credit card or check is likely to get your name back on the direct-mail rolls.
• Create a printed label that says:

  “I don’t want my name placed on any mailing lists whatsoever, and I forbid the use, sale, rental, or transfer of my name.”

• The Direct Marketing Association, in Washington, D.C., has published a pamphlet entitled Direct Marketing Association Guidelines for Ethical Business Practice. It offers a comprehensive review of your rights regarding unsolicited third-class mail. For example, consider Article 32 on “List Rental Practices.”

  Under the heading “Use of Mailing Lists,” the DMA states, “Consumers that provide data that may be rented, sold or exchanged for direct marketing purposes periodically should be informed of the potential for the rental, sale, or exchange of such data.” It further states, “List compilers should suppress names from lists when requested from the individual.” To reach the ethics department of the Direct Marketing Association write to this address:

  Ethics Department Direct Marketing Association, Inc. 1126 6th Avenue New York, NY 10036 (212) 768-7277 Fax (212) 768-4546

• When you are besieged by third-class mail from repeat or gross offenders, and when such offenders have included a self-addressed bulk-mail reply envelope, feel free to use the envelope to request that your name be removed from their lists. Also, review their literature to see if there is a (toll-free) 800-, 888-, or 877-number by which you can make such a request, at no cost to you.
• For those who do not heed your request, lodge a complaint with the Direct Marketing Association or the U.S. Postal Service.
• Sometimes the fastest way to deal with repeat offenders is to simply write the words “Speed Reply” right on the communication from them that you’ve received, and underneath those two words write this message: “Please remove me from your mailing list now and forever.” Sign your name, date it, and send back the items or communication that you received. Be sure to address it to the mailing list manager of the offending organization.
• At all times and in all places, inform the parties with whom you do business that you do not appreciate having your name added to a mailing list and being inundated by catalogs, announcements, brochures, and fliers. This is particularly necessary if you place an order by fax, make a purchase by credit card, fill out a magazine subscription form, or procure any other type of good or service other than by cash.

As an extreme measure, I once carefully wrapped up a brick, and on the outside of the wrapper included this note to a gross offender: “I respectfully request that you remove my name from your mailing list. This is my eighth [or whatever the number] request, and if unheeded, I shall send 10 bricks next time.” After wrapping up the wrapped-brick-and-message, I affixed the bulk-mail-postal-reply face of the envelope sent to me in the latest mailing. I taped it securely to the package and dropped it in a mailbox. Technically, of course, the post office didn’t have to deliver it (I’d defaced the reply envelope), but the delivery went through. It seems I made a dramatic, costly impact on the original mailer, who then chose to heed my request and eliminate my name from their rolls. (They called me and surrendered.)

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 A Stitch in Time The less unwanted mail you receive, the more time in your life. Period.

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By now, you may be thinking, “This guy’s got a vendetta against junk mail.” Actually, I don’t. I am not fond of waste—especially the waste of time in relation to the delivery of mail I never wanted to receive in the first place.