So you got the job. Now what? Join me, Eleni Mata, on HBR's new original podcast, New

Here, the Young Professionals Guide to Work, and how to make it work for you. Listen for

free wherever you get your podcasts. Just search New Here. See you there!

Welcome to the HBR ID cast from Harvard Business Review. I'm Allison Beard. The world of work is

always changing, which is why on this show we're always trying to bring you the latest

research and thinking on management, innovation, leadership, and career building. But there

are some best practices that don't change much, largely because we're all still human. At a

moment when a lot of us are feeling pretty overwhelmed, and maybe having trouble communicating

it, especially over email Slack and Zoom, we wanted to reshare one of our favorite past

episodes. It's one where we look at how to say no when someone asks you to do more work,

whether it's a boss, peer, or client. How do you stop adding things to your plate without

making anyone mad? Check out this best of idea cast with former hosts Sarah Green Carmichael,

and Karen Dillon, the author of the HBR Guide to Office Politics. I hope you enjoy it, and

that it does you some good in the coming weeks.

So today we're talking about, I talk about probably most of us have faced at some point in

our work lives, which is saying no to more work. And yet, even though we may have faced this

a lot, it's still hard to say no to a new assignment. Just in the beginning, to avoid giving

kind of the knee jerk, no, or the knee jerk, yes, how should we be assessing these requests,

and before we decide what to say about them? Well, the key thing you said there was before,

you should take time. It's really easy in the moment to kind of panic with something that

looks like extra work, and imagine all the reasons that you can't possibly. But I really advise

you to take a minute to think about it. If you can actually say, can I just look at my schedule

...