[openforce]

Early in my career, my then really good manager taught me to say no, Which was initially difficult for me. But, I am really thankful for that lesson. Learning to stand your ground and say no to excess work is very important if you care about a life outside work.

People from India, like me, especially have a hard time saying NO to being assigned something that, either you have no time to work on or something you don't want to work on. It's a cultural thing combined with the golden leash of H1b visas. I see a lot of my colleagues from India accepting more and more work and end up having almost no life outside of it.