Learning to say no: Seven questions to ask before accepting an invitation

I just got back from a short meeting in the States. Even though I was only out of the office a few days, I am now even further behind with backed-up peer review, finishing manuscript drafts, collaborations. My long-suffering family now have to cope with me being tired and irritable while I catch up on missed sleep and adjusting back to local time. And I can see several more weeks out of the office coming before Christmas.

During the meeting dinner I fell to discussing the pressures of attending all these meetings and keeping sane with Julie Segre, an investigator at the NIH. It was great to meet Julie, who is one of the genome detectives featured in Carl Zimmer's inspiring article Mutants. She told me her brilliant scheme for dealing with academic invitations -- she has seven questions she will ask of every invitation. Unless all the answers are yes, she will decline.

I thought this was such a good idea, I asked her to send them to me to share on this blog.

Over to Julie!

I think the important part is to formulate your own questions and revisit as your life changes. I have switched the order of these questions at different times.  Right now, I'm wondering why the invitation being an honor is so high on my list – I think this was intended to capture the times that it is grad students inviting me rather than some committee.  My important criteria are:

1. Is the person inviting me someone whom I really like or owe a favor?
2. Will I meet people that I need/want to meet?
3. Is this invitation really an honor?
4. Have I already agreed to other trips during this time period?
5. Do I completely understand the commitment; e.g. If this is a review of a candidate, is it just on paper or does it require a travel to the site?
If I agree to be on the program committee will I have to review 100+ abstracts?
6. Is the trip somewhere that I really want to go? (What is the travel time? Are there direct flights?)
7. Have I checked with my spouse?

I say 'no' and don't feel bad.  I truly enjoy my open days with protected time.  I find that writing this down and making myself go through these questions has helped to separate the things that I want to do from things that I should do from things that I really need to do.

Blog away – others have loved this idea, although I'm not sure they have adopted it.  I've tried to make a similar decision making tree to pick a journal for submission, but I have yet to understand that rather irrational process.

Well, I think this is great advice. I am really grateful for Julie for letting me post these.

Saying no is always a difficult thing to do, but I realise it is actually vital if you want to keep control of your work, family and sanity! I will adapt Julie's list and try and stick to it as my New Year's resolution.