my partner always tells me that my fatal flaw is ambition (with a special regard to my professional career). I never believed her when she told me I’m working too much, until very recently.

so here I am, currently at ~30,000 feet or so drinking stale airplane coffee and taking a break from sketching out a new startup’s first product line iteration to write this post. feeling exhausted.

a quick overview of my recent 18 months:

• i worked on completing my CS degree at UT Austin as a full time student
• interned at Amazon over summer (returning full time after graduation)
• launched 1.0 of my first startup (ReKall)
• began the development & release of ReKall’s 2.0 launch
• consulted two groups in their idea & prototype phases
• began a new side project with the ReKall team
• joined another startup as a tech-adviser and coordinated hiring three engineers for the project
• officially joined the founding team of a another group as their head of product
• various smaller projects
• and tried to manage a long distance relationship (thank you darling, you were my rock).

but why?

I didn’t know how to say “no.” I wanted to do things. to build up cool shit and grow as an engineer and entrepreneur.

why learning to say “no” is important.

the quality of work and time commitment to each of your current obligations diminishes. that’s a simple product of over-extending yourself and over-allocating your time. I started drinking a lot more coffee (side note: a quad shot of espresso over ice in the morning is refreshing and delicious) and sleeping a lot less.

I’m not saying that I’m at a point where I regret taking on the projects and things I have, because I’d 104% choose the same if I could turn back time. but it has not been an entirely healthy process emotionally and I did learn that:

• personal health is vital.
• managing your time is a learned skill.
• giving time to and being present in your relationships is important.
• saying “no” won’t burn a bridge if you’re transparent, respectful, and foster it for future opportunities.

while finishing this draft, I came across a blog post by Ash Furrow, an iOS Engineer that’s been really helpful in both the iOS community and in my personal mobile-dev growth, (here) and if this wasn’t awful in your eyes, i recommend you check his perspective out. but i really like the way Ash came to say “no”:

I’d love to, but I can’t.

“That’s it.”

-s