I am in trouble. Please help me prioritize

So you’re overwhelmed. There’s way too much to do. There are too many things you are involved in..
The common advice of all the ‘Get-it-done‘ Guru’s is ‘Say NO’ to all tasks you don’t want/you don’t need to do/ you know you can’t complete.

Saying ‘No’ is easier said than done.

What if all the people you are saying ‘No’ to are your bosses/superiors at work?
You stand much greater risk pissing them off and trying your productivity tips in your inevitable job hunt after you’ve been fired.
If you are not near the top, I would recommend a ‘I am in trouble. Please help me prioritize’ approach. Let all those bosses who you are accountable to know that you’re being squeezed and need help prioritizing. And unless you’re being managed by a really bad boss (let’s face it, there are a few of those out there), you’ll generally get help.
Best of luck with that!
PS: If you don’t, that’s what you’ll term as a ‘life experience’ and learn lots from it. If that happens, do just send me a note on rohan [at] rohanrajiv [dot] com and I’ll be happy to share it on this blog! ;)

What’s the point of being popular? – Seth Godin

You’d think that it’s the most important thing in the world. Homecoming queen, student body president, the most Facebook friends, Oscar winner, how many people are waiting in line at the book signing…

Popular is almost never a measure of impact, or genius, or art. Popular rarely correlates with guts, hard work or a willingness to lead (and be willing to be wrong along the way).

I’ll grant you that being popular (at least on one day in November) is a great way to get elected President. But in general, the search for popular is wildly overrated, because it corrupts our work, eats away at our art and makes it likely we’ll compromise to please the anonymous masses.

Worth considering is the value of losing school elections and other popularity contests. Losing reminds you that the opinion of unaffiliated strangers is worthless. They don’t know you, they’re not interested in what you have to offer and you can discover that their rejection actually means nothing. It will empower you to even bigger things in the future…

When you focus on delighting an audience you care about, you strip the masses of their power.

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Another brilliant piece by Godin. He seems to be on a roll this week! :)

On the day everyone is pleased… – Seth Godin

On that day, the day that everyone notices your work, approves and lets you know, then what will happen?

We spend an incredible amount of time and psychic energy planning and working for that day, but why? It will never arrive, and even if it does, it’s not clear that anything special happens.

Perhaps the approval of every person in the entire world doesn’t need to be the goal of your work.

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Thank you, Seth Godin – for making blogging an art form.