JUST SAY NO

“Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi was putting together a study of some of the most creative successful people around: 275 Nobel Prize winners, National Book Award winners, and other people clearly at the top of their fields. It was a major study by a renowned researcher that would be well publicized. It was incredibly flattering just to be invited. So what happened?

Over a third said no. Many more didn’t even reply. They had their own work to do. Csikszentmihalyi invited Peter Drucker and received this in response: ‘I hope you will not think me presumptuous or rude if I say that one of the secrets of productivity . . . is to have a very big waste paper basket to take care of all invitations such as yours.’” - Eric Barker from Barking Up the Wrong Tree