This one advice by Steve Jobs will drastically improve your work performance

We all come across days in our professional lives when we feel overwhelmed with work. The to-do list looks endless, stress levels soar and work productivity takes a hit. In case, this situation sounds familiar to you, here’s a piece of advice by tech trailblazer Steve Jobs that might be of great help to you.

It was way back in 1997 when Steve Jobs was at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference and gave this career advice that can boost one’s productivity by many folds. And interestingly, it had just five-words—“Focusing is about saying no.” Confused? Read on!

According to the legend, the key to come up with and execute brilliant ideas is to say ‘no’ to thousand other tasks that consume time. “When you think about focusing, you think, well, focusing is about saying yes. No. Focusing is about saying no,” he opined during the conference.

Clearly, his advice had a vision. Prioritising work improves your focus and helps you give your best shot and in turn, improves your productivity and work satisfaction. To be focussed, one needs to re-evaluate the goals, and wisely choose what to work on. Jobs emphasised on the same subject during the conference and explained, “Innovation is saying 'no' to 1,000 things. You have to pick carefully."

Of course, you can’t walk into the office one day and start saying no to your manager, colleagues and clients as per your whims and fancies. But you surely can cultivate this habit step by step in your daily schedule and bring a change in your professional life. It could start with saying no to unnecessary coffee breaks to colleagues, ignoring the emails that do not require your intervention, negotiating deadlines, skipping unnecessary meetings, effectively delegating your work and speaking up when you feel there is too much on your plate.

Steve Job’s advice might not be as easy to adapt as it sounds. It is hard to say ‘no’ in the professional world and you might end up straining your relations with your colleagues. But here is something to remind yourself whenever you hold back from saying no to any unproductive work. Whenever you are saying ‘yes’ to any task or assignment, it would be something that interests you and motivates you to give your 100 per cent. It would make your day productive and increase your work satisfaction. Most importantly, saying yes to the right things and executing them is what gives you an edge over your contemporaries.