A Framework I'm Developing to Decide When to Say Yes to Service Requests

When I became an associate professor of the practice, I said yes to almost everything because I thought that was what I was supposed to do. That led to an unsustainable workload that I wrote about here.

[Also posted on Medium.]

In this post, I share a framework I’m developing to help me decide whether to say “yes” to a service request, with the goal of thinking more strategically rather than reactively. I’m writing this for anyone who feels like they are spending too much time on service or feeling overwhelmed by it all. I’m also writing it for current and future me as I navigate these requests.

Understand why you have too much service

Before using a strategy to better handle service requests, we must know thyself!

Use the Five Whys to dig deeper

In some ways, the answer to this question seems obvious, because you keep saying “yes.” But we need to dig deeper by using the Five Whys from design thinking. The Five Whys is an iterative process for exploring the causes and effects of what is happening. So, after we say that the reason we have so much service is “because we keep saying yes,” we ask, “Why do you keep saying yes?” And repeat until we get to the root of what is going on. It may take more or fewer “why”s, but the goal is the same: figuring out why you have too much service. Below are a few ways to structure digging into these whys, because even I would feel like I’m being treated like a child with being told: “ask yourself why 5 times.”

What core value will you sacrifice your time for?

For me, a reason I say yes too often is that one of my biggest life goals is to make the world a better place. This is one of my core values. It is one of the things I will sacrifice even the personal time I’ve set aside for myself. I teach my students the metaphor of a guiding star. It helps them navigate and decide where to go in life. For me, this is like my biggest star and the yardstick (yes, I’m mixing metaphors now) I use to measure whether something is worth doing.

What are your triggers and rationales?

Answering this question is important because it’ll help you better understand why you say “yes” even when you know you have too much to do. Triggers and rationales are unique to each person and might take work to figure out, because some are buried deep in our subconscious. It took me a few therapy sessions and a lot of introspection to figure out some of the current triggers/rationales that resonate. One that I often get caught up in is the equivalent of “do it for the children.” Where the “children” are usually students or some group that cannot “fend for themselves” by some rationale that my brain can easily articulate while ignoring the fact that the world is not all on my shoulders.

Also, notice I said *current* triggers and rationales. These may change with time! But that’s okay, you are not the same person you were a few years ago, so why would we assume you’ll be the same person a few years from now? But I digress. The goal is to find the reasons that resonate and push you to rationalize choices that lead to overwork.

Another way to identify rationalization patterns is to consider those stemming from insecurities or psychological blocks. If you are a member of NCFDD, they have a great list of reasons why people don’t say “no” more often. If you are not a member yet, you can check if your institution has an institution-wide one and claim your membership. From the list, I have 3 psychological blocks that resonate:

1. You feel overly responsible for things that aren’t entirely your responsibility.
2. You believe everything will fall apart unless you do the work.
3. You’re overcompensating and/or trying to prove you belong.

The first two really work hard to get me to say “yes” when the request aligns with my core values. The last one works hard when I’m asked to do something related to something I’ve already said “yes” to, like serving on a committee, but it’s an additional, above-and-beyond request that isn’t expected of everyone serving in that capacity.

How do these things lead to overcommitment?

Your core values, triggers, and rationales get you to say “yes.” Identifying them helps you see your patterns. But they rarely help you figure out where to draw your boundaries. For example, while knowing my core value of making the world better helps me see my rationalization pattern of “if I do X, things will be better for people,” it doesn’t help me figure out the “cut-off” for my priorities. Because there are always more things I can/want to do than I have time for.

To help me find and hold to boundaries, I look for reasons to say “no” that align with my core values, which makes them more likely to come to mind. A framing that resonates with me is that burning out helps no one. I want to do this for the rest of my life, which is far longer than a marathon. To help me see and therefore hold to my boundaries, I force myself to articulate how much time something will take and try to fit it into my calendar with actual calendar events. This is a big reason why I block out every time commitment in my calendar, including the solo work time. As I move events to unsustainable spots on my calendar (like my weekend), it forces me to see and feel the cost of a “yes,” helping me slow down as I decide.

Reminder: Your mileage may vary

To close, I’ll remind you that you are looking for the core values, triggers, and rationalizations that get you to say “yes” more than is healthy. What resonates with me may not resonate with you, and that makes sense because we are different people. The goal is to identify the core values you are willing to sacrifice for, and the patterns that keep getting you overcommitted. Knowledge is power! And it is the first step to figuring out how to get better at this.

What to do when you are asked, a 2-phase cycle

Once you know why you have too much service, you can use that knowledge to help inform what you do when you are asked for some of your time. I like to think of the process as going through 2 phases:

1. Gather information
2. Evaluate that information

I sometimes cycle through these phases multiple times before deciding because one round reveals new information that needs to be gathered. The cycle may take as little as a few minutes of back-and-forth email or as much as multiple days or weeks. It depends on the time commitment. The greater the time commitment, the more time should be spent in and cycling through the phases. The last thing you want to do is to make a quick decision on not enough information, only to later discover you’ve committed to way more hours than you originally thought.

In the next two sections, I will outline a menu of possible things for each phase. You should not do everything in a single round! The goal is to help you think through what would be good to do in the current phase of your decision-making process. Having a list to choose from at least helps us think through what is appropriate for the specific request.

A few things before you start the process: First, make it clear to the asker that you need more information before deciding. Notice I did not write that you should say you are considering saying “yes.” I’ve already been tripped up by this once, where someone took my “I am interested in this. [question about the request]” to mean I said yes, when in reality I was trying to be polite. Now I say, “Before I decide, [question about the request]” Make your message clear!

Second, do not say yes right after being asked! Even if you can quickly do this process in front of the asker, odds are you are getting caught up in the moment (or the asker’s enthusiasm) if you are willing to say “yes” right then. I have a personal rule, which I even tell people, that I am not allowed to say yes to anything that I think will take me more than an hour without sleeping on it first.

Information Gathering Phase

When you gather information, context matters. Some of these questions will not be applicable, but hopefully, reading through them will help you figure out what information you need to decide whether the request is reasonable for you to do.

• Who has done it before? — This person will be valuable in understanding the actual time commitments and cost/benefits of doing this service request. Keep in mind that the person making the request may not be the one who did it and, therefore, may not have answers to some of these other questions. On the other hand, their answers might give you another lens in understanding the service request, so asking them some of these questions still makes sense.
• How long is this service role for? — Is the role for 1 year? Does it have an end date? Will it be yours until you say you no longer want it?
• How much time is required on a typical week versus a heavy week versus a light week? What time of the year do these weeks happen? — Use this information to check if this time commitment fits in your schedule. If it does not, ask yourself what you are willing to sacrifice to make time for this.
• Is there any compensation? — For small stuff, this is unlikely. For bigger stuff, there is often something from money to reduced work in other areas. If it’s a big external service, you should ask your chair if your internal service can be reduced to compensate.
• How is the work structured? — Is it steady with loose deadlines? Lots of frequent hard deadlines? When are these deadlines? When does the work appear versus when it is due? This one tripped me up. I’m a huge planner (as evidenced by my many blog posts, including an entire series on calendars), and while I do have buffer time every week, even that struggles to handle a sudden influx of 4 hours of work due in 3 days.
• Is this level of service typical for someone of my rank? — This is a question for a more experienced mentor, as well as, depending on the relationship, the person asking. Make sure you ask within the context of your entire service load, not just the current request, so the person has the entire picture.
• What other costs are there besides time? — Will this require travel? Hours outside of regular work hours? These would have a toll on personal and family time. Is there an emotional toll? Some kinds of interactions, like with students, have a different cost than others. You will need to understand this through the lens of your own tendencies and the person(s) who has done it before.

Evaluate Phase

Something very helpful after gathering a bunch of information is to talk to a mentor. This mentor could be someone more senior to you, but it could also be a peer who knows you well or has experience you do not. It could also just be a friend who helps you talk through the decision process.

When you talk to this mentor, give them a broad overview of what you are currently doing to set the context for where this decision is being made. Then ask them to help you look through a few different lenses: (1) does it make any sense to do this, (2) what do you need for the next promotion, and (3) what do you need to do to be a good citizen of the department/school/academic community? If they are a more experienced academic, you should also ask them whether you should approach your chair to negotiate a change in your workload to accommodate the new request, and how to do it.

As you talk and think about things, weigh the benefits versus the costs. Notice I did not say to consider the pros and cons because those two words, to me at least, rarely include considering how much time I will spend on something. Framing it as a benefits-versus-costs approach helps my brain remember things like time, emotional toll, extra mental bandwidth, etc. that some things require, while the word “con” only gets me thinking about the things I don’t like but just have to deal with.

At the same time, what you define as a benefit or a cost is entirely up to you. Benefits could include boosting your visibility, which is good for your career. A cost could be dealing with a specific kind of “cat herding” that takes a lot of emotional and mental bandwidth, even if it takes little actual time.

As you deliberate, be aware of your triggers and rationales, so you are less likely to under- or overestimate a benefit or cost. And just articulating them might not be enough. There are times I say “the world won’t end if I don’t do X” but sometimes the mantra doesn’t make me feel that it’s true. Slowing down or delaying the decision after sleeping on it helps. So find what helps you to really believe the things that stop your triggers from clamoring for urgent attention that isn’t actually true.

Finally, it’s important to acknowledge the reality that sometimes there is no perfect win-win situation. Many of us are in this job because we want to help others, make a difference, make the world a better place, love teaching (and therefore want to help others), etc. So it’s natural for us to want to say yes to things that align with that, and it’s very easy to argue why most service requests align with such a goal. And it’s wonderful to have such a goal! It is perfectly reasonable for there to be a tension between having too much service work and having a goal like this. And we need to metaphorically put our own oxygen masks on first, because burnout helps no one.

One other thing, there are also external realities that may make it impossible to say no. And that’s okay. What’s important is keeping an eye on the goal of reaching or maintaining a sustainable level of service work, and continuing to do what you can to move towards it.

Conclusion

If I had to summarize this framework, it would be:

1. Understand why I say “yes”
2. Gather enough information before deciding
3. Weigh the costs versus the benefits (preferably with a mentor)
4. Keep my triggers and rationalizations in mind

With a reminder that your mileage may vary, so please consider what resonates with you.

To close, dear reader and future me, I hope this blog post was helpful. Some service requests will be quick and easy to decide, and others will take time. Hopefully, this post gives your decision process enough structure to feel more confident in your choice. Finally, if you can think of anything else to add, please leave it in the comments. I’d appreciate a collective pool of ideas just as much as anyone!