Mulling an invitation? Answer is closer than you think
What an honor! You’ve been asked to appear on a panel, to keynote a conference, to be publicly acclaimed. Of course you accept, for you have so much time to prepare. This isn’t happening until October. You’ve made a terrible mistake. Here’s what will happen. Though the engagement seems infinitely far away today, it will eventually, inevitably, be a week away. Then it’s a day away. And you still haven’t written the speech. You still have to make a hotel reservation and buy a train ticket and find a baby sitter and apologize to your sister for missing her birthday dinner and beg Dan to cover for you in a meeting. (Sorry, Dan.) The opportunity that sparkled so brightly months ago isn’t gleaming anymore. It’s just a big hassle.
But I have the miracle solution. (To give credit where it’s due, this tidbit was passed along to me by my wife, Hanna Rosin, and her friend, The New Yorker staff writer Margaret Talbot.)
Any time anyone invites you to do anything, ask yourself before you accept: Would I do it tomorrow?
That’s it. This is the crucial question: Would I upend whatever I am doing tomorrow so that I can go there and do that?
Are they paying you enough to skip your daughter’s soccer game tomorrow? Is the panel interesting enough that you don’t mind asking your colleague to cover for you, tomorrow? Is the conference important enough to your career that you would blowoff your college roommate’s visit, which is tomorrow?
Tomorrow makes decisions simple. Meeting the president? Of course I would do that tomorrow! You’re proposing to payme that much? Then Iwould speak to your annual meeting of anesthesiologists tomorrow. Driving to North Carolina to give a speech? Not tomorrow. Serve on that important-sounding committee? If I have to do it tomorrow, no way.
Don’t thank me for this life-altering advice. Just pass it on. And do it today.