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Welcome to the latest issue of Write for You
News & Notes
with some words of wisdom on
writing, business, and life. If you'd like to
share any books or favorite links with our
readers,
send us an
e-mail. And be sure to check
our web site for ways that we can help you
with your
business.
Nancy Passow
| Some Advice on When to Say "Yes" or "No" |
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Peter Bregman, CEO of Bregman Partners, Inc.,
writes a blog for the
Harvard Business Review. His most recent
post, "The
Worth-Your-Time Test", provides some
useful advice for deciding
whether to say yes or no. He suggests that
when someone comes to you
with a request, ask yourself these three
questions:
1. Am I the right person?
2. Is this the right time?
3. Do I have enough information?
If you answer no to any of the three
questions, than don't do it.
Bregman recommends, "Pass it to someone else
(the right person),
schedule it for another time (the right
time), or wait until you have
the information you need (either you or
someone else needs to get it)."
This is a great way to move from the
emotional "no" to an objective "no"
-- plus it gives you the opportunity to
provide an alternative response (e.g., yes, I
can help you with that, but not until next week).
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| It Would Have Been Enough |
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We're in the midst of Passover, the Jewish
holiday that celebrates the
Exodus from Egypt as well as the spring
harvest. During the Passover
Seder, we sing a song called "Dayenu", which
recounts various wondrous
things that God did for the Jewish people and
repeats dayenu -- "it
would have been enough for us" or "it would
have been sufficient".
I
had my own Dayenu list this past month,
things that individually would
have been just fine, but taken all together . . .
. I had to
transition my daughter's former bedroom into
a guest room, complete
with a new bed; I had to pick up our friends
from Japan (dad and his
two little boys) at Kennedy Airport and
eventually install them in the
new guest room; I had to play catch-up after
being without power for
2-1/2 days; I had to teach; I had to prepare
to host the first Seder (cooking and cleaning); I
had to transition us from AT&T DSL to
Verizon DSL (more on that in
my latest Blog);
I had to complete some work
for a client; and finally,
the morning of the Seder I woke up with a
fever and a bad cold.
Somehow
it all got done, not perfectly to be sure,
but well enough to make
everyone happy; everyone pitched in and
helped me get through the Seder
(thank you, Kate!!) Now if I would just stop
sneezing and coughing!
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E-mail of the Month . . . The Writer's Almanac |
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I knew about Garrison Keillor, although I
never became a fan of Prairie Home Companion.
Recently, however, WQXR started broadcasting
Keillor's The
Writer's Almanac every weekday at
noon. It consists of Keillor telling us about
literary people celebrating a birthday on
that day and then reading a poem. After a
little bit of hunting, I was able to find it
on the web and discovered I could subscribe
-- I now get a daily e-mail with that day's
Writer's Almanac. It's a fun way to
read a poem everyday and to learn about old
and new writers. A recent birthday celebrant
was David Pogue, the tech writer for the
New York Times. Having learned it was
his birthday, I sent him an e-mail birthday
wish and got a thank you back; he was amused
to learn he'd been on the Writer's Almanac.
Of course if I was really cool I would have
tweeted him (but I'm only just learning to do
that).
Quote of the Month: "If you're
going through hell, keep going." Winston
Churchill
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