Maybe "No" Should Be Your Default Word

If I'd listened to customers,

I'd have given them a faster horse.

-Henry Ford

It's so easy to say yes. Yes to another feature, yes to an overly optimistic deadline, yes to a mediocre design. Soon, the stack of things you've said yes to grows so tall you can't even see the things you should really be doing.

In "Rework" by Jason Fried and David Heinemeir Hansson (founders of 37signals), the authors encourage us to get into the habit of saying no - even to many of your best ideas. The power of no can help keep your priorities straight. You rarely regret saying no. But you often wind up regretting saying yes.

People avoid saying no because confrontation makes them uncomfortable. But the alternative is even worse. You drag things out, make things complicated, and work on ideas you don't believe in.

What about it? Can you say "no" today?

Less is a good thing...

Constraints are advantages in disguise.

Limited resources force you to make do with what you've got. There's no room for waste. And that forces you to be creative.

If the most common words around your place sound something like "I don't have enough time/money/people/experience", it's time you learned something:

Less is a good thing.


Stop whining. Instead, get creative and you'll be amazed at what you can make with just a little. So before you sing the "not enough" blues, see how far you can get with what you have.

-from "Rework" by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson