Hello everyone, and thanks for being with me today for this amazing blog post. I’m really excited about what I’m going to share with you. We’re going to continue the conversation of crushing productivity and getting things done in the least amount of time. One thing that’s pretty common is creating a to-do list of all the things that need to be done, and then slowly and methodically crossing things off as they’re completed. To-do lists aren’t always bad, but there are many times when other productivity methods work better. There are certainly ways to make your to-do list better, starting with not necessarily calling it a to-do list, but rather an action list, success list, or something of that nature.
That, however, is a topic for another time. This post isn’t really about to-do lists. Today, there’s something I’d really like to challenge you on. If you’ve never done it, it’s something you need to try: create a not-to-do list. I’m not telling you to throw out your to-do list, I’m just saying that having a not-to-do list is equally valuable, if not more so. This list should consist of things that you’re going to commit to not doing in the next day, week, month, or whatever timeframe applies. It’s really easy to get overwhelmed by all the things we want to do, but in order to do those things, we have to choose not to do other things that get in the way of what we want to accomplish.
So think about it, what’s going to be on your not-to-do list? Is it administrative work or data entry? I’m not saying your company shouldn’t do it, just that you shouldn’t be doing it. Or, at the very least, you shouldn’t be doing the majority of it. You might choose not to worry as part of your not-to-do list, because it doesn’t do any good to worry. Or how about a decision that you will not be interrupted constantly by (insert common interruptions here)? Or perhaps not being distracted by certain things is on your list.
Most of us like to keep lists of the things we want to do and we take it pretty seriously. I think that’s great. But oftentimes, we should take what we need not to do even more seriously. If we want to have the time and energy to complete things on our to-do list, we have to delegate, eliminate, and offset things on our not-to-do list. We need to be able to focus on the things that are vitally important. I honestly need to work on my not-to-do list as well, because it’s been a while. It’s one of those things you want to do every quarter or every month and keep it updated.
Conclusion
At this point, you now know the most important details regarding the creation of a not-to-do list, as well as what makes them so important. How awesome is that? We’re going to be talking more about time maximization in the future, so please join me again for the next blog post. In the meantime, give this a try and make it a better than amazing day!
