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Time Management
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Managing Mail
Here are a few tactics to help you say no to intrusions on
your time through the mail:
• Throw away or shred any piece of mail that’s clearly “junk.” Don’t
even bother to open it. (Direct mail experts know this, of course,
so they often put something that looks like a check behind the cel-
lophane envelope window that makes you afraid not to open it.)
• Cancel subscriptions to publications you rarely get around to read-
ing.
• Contact the Direct Marketing Association (1120 Avenue of the
Americas, New York, NY 10036-6700 or www.the-dma.org) to
obtain forms that can help you limit the flow of unwanted mail to
your office or home.
• Skim all “wanted” magazines for relevant articles, highlighting or
underlining key points. If you don’t have time to read them, tear out
important articles and file them for future reference.
• Discard any topical magazine that’s more than a few months old.
You’ll never get to it anyway.

Telemarketers know that it’s hard to say no. Indeed, they
prey on our politeness—those dinner interruptions aren’t just for
the old alma mater but also for timeshares, opinion polls,
investment schemes, and sales pitches for all types of products.
Such calls have become so common that there are now compa-
nies that, for a fee, will work to take you off telemarketing lists.
Now that’s an investment idea.
It’s not just telemarketers, either. Friends, fellow workers,
and others often place subtle (and sometimes not so subtle)
demands on our time and energy. If, out of politeness, we
acquiesce to all these demands, we subject ourselves to drain-
ing levels of stress. The result: our performance in all areas suf-
fers. Sometimes we just need to say no to those who make
requests or demands of us.
Saying no is exceedingly difficult, though, isn’t it? It takes
willpower. Indeed, in an age when most people are already too
burdened with obligations, to learn when and how to say no
becomes one of the most crucial skills you can acquire.