When I was a product manager, “resources” and “priorities” were a daily topic.
We need to get this release out, and we need that have that feature built, and this bug just popped up and it will take someone two days to fix that alone!
Every day was a discussion of priorities for the resources we had at our disposal. We only had some many people who could spend so many hours completing so many tasks. It was obvious, day in and day out, that we were making compromises and tradeoffs.
That’s less obvious in other settings.
You, you personally, have your own set of “resources” – namely, your time.
When you take on a project, or volunteer your time, or even go overtime at the office, you are making an implicit tradeoff. Even going outside to exercise, going out on a Friday, or staying in to watch TV means you’re making a tradeoff.
It’s important to always remember that by saying “yes” to something, you are implicitly saying “no” to something else.