the planning fallacy (and why i'm not saying yes to things anymore)
I swear I heard this precise piece of advice at least 85 times in grad school and during my postdoc:
Start saying no.
I heard it from my advisors, my friends, my partner—honestly, even my dog was probably trying to psychically shove this idea into my brain meat at some point. Now matter how many time management skills you pick up, it’s not going to be enough if you’ve overloaded yourself with more promises and deadlines than you can possibly uphold.
(Even now, I just had a little flashback to telling my partner that I’d agreed to moderate another discord server. That screech of impotent frustration is branded into my memory forever.)
My postdoc adviser had a hack for this. He suggested that, next time someone offers me an optional task/project/whatever, I should think about whether I’d say yes if the project had to happen right now.
So imagine that I get invited to blurb a book. Right now, I’m overwhelmed: I am on two deadlines for novels and my child has been nonstop sick for the past 2 months so I’ve barely been able to work even on the non-optional projects. It would be easy to say sure, the blurb isn’t due until May. I’ll have more time in April and May to read and blurb, once my kid isn’t sick and I’m past the first of these deadlines.
But that’s a fallacy, see? What makes me think I’ll be less busy in May? I’ll still have my second deadline. My child may get sick again. I might get sick. Or my house could catch fire. I could be dealing with a depression relapse.
The point is, you’re always going to be busy. You don’t magically become less busy at some nebulous future point. If blurbing this book is something that I feel like I could make happen if it were due this week, then awesome, say yes and do the blurb in May.
But if the prospect of doing the task right now seems overwhelming, don’t assume it’ll be less overwhelming in a couple months.
There’s a psychological concept called the planning fallacy.
The planning fallacy is the idea that we will always plan for tasks to take less time than they actually will. In short, we have an optimism bias about the resources (time, energy, motivation) that will be required to complete tasks.
The problem with logical fallacies is that knowing they exist doesn’t actually make you less likely to engage in them. I have a Ph.D. in psychology and know these fallacies better than most, but I still tell myself oh, I can knock out that chapter over the weekend, so it’s okay if I play Baldur’s Gate this afternoon.
Then the weekend comes and I have COVID and there is no writing happening, no way.
My plan now is to try to just…wild idea…say no.
How many of the things I say yes to are actually necessary? If I don’t mod this discord server, will it fall into anarchy and disrepair? Surely there is someone else who could do the job.
If I don’t blurb this book, will its sales plummet and the author’s career tumble into a chasm? Let’s not think too highly of ourselves.
If I don’t write a short story for this anthology, will I be doomed to anonymity and a fizzling career? I like to think of myself as a novelist, so maybe I should be focusing on writing my contracted novels, anyway.
None of this is to say that I’m gonna say no to everything, all the time.
I have closed to blurbs, but that said, I’m still reading right now to blurb a book for a friend.
I have no plans to participate in any more anthologies, but if the right opportunity came up, I might change my mind.
I don’t need to be the person who organizes every single donation drive when one of my friends needs a helping hand—I can let someone else take the wheel and choose to just donate, this time.
I don’t need to volunteer to make both dinner and a homemade dessert for the upcoming party with friends. In fact, if I want, I can just bring Chip City cookies. People do it all the time.
The point is: Will saying yes to this thing give you energy and happiness? Or is it going to deplete you and distract you from focusing on the things you really want to do?
Tht’s why I’m trying to start saying “no.” It’s hard, as a people pleaser.
But I think it’ll be worth it. Both for my sanity, and for my happiness.
What I’m reading right now: Dead Wake by Erik Larson
What I’m playing right now: Baldur’s Gate 3
What I’m listening to: “scum of it” by Hozier
What I’m writing right now: My untitled adult romance (stay tuned, paid subscribers, for an exclusive synopsis and character introductions!)
What I’m cooking: I’ve been trying to get in the habit of baking challah every Thursday or Friday again. Lately I’ve been using this recipe from Tori Avey and loving it.