Is a publishing professional with more than twenty years of

WhY aLL ThaT “YeS” SneaKS Up On YOU
Glaucoma  is  a  gradual  hardening  of  the  eyeball,  which  if  left 
untreated, can cause blindness. It’s an especially insidious disease; 
because the impairment is so gradual, the victim is often able to 
make  subtle,  unconscious  compensations  for  a  slowly  shrinking 
field of vision, becoming aware of the disease only when it’s too 
late to treat it.
Making too many commitments can be like that, too.
“The problem with clutter in our lives, like clutter in our clos-
ets, is it arrives one piece at a time, never in basketfuls,” Benson 
Wright notes. “It’s not too difficult to refuse a huge, overwhelming 
load of additional responsibilities; it’s tough, however, to decline 
‘just one more.’”
Add  up  all  the  extra  tasks  you  perform,  anything  above  and 
beyond what’s required. Check your planner and look closely at 
time slots in the evening and on weekends, your “personal” time.
Here’s the start of one person’s list:
•  Coach a Y basketball team
•  Chair the workplace expectations committee at the office
•  Coordinate United Way fundraising in the department
•  Serve as recording secretary for the church council
•  And on and on . . .
These are all good, worthwhile things to do. Somebody should 
do them. But does it have to be 
you
 in every instance?
The items on your list are all good, worthy endeavors, too. You 
probably genuinely enjoy doing them. We tend to enjoy the things 
we do well and gravitate toward these tasks when we have a choice. 
Time management would be a lot easier if there were obvious time 
wasters on your list and tasks you dreaded doing.
L E A R N I N G   T O   S AY   “ N O ”

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