Shout-out to my good friend Alex Mandossian for helping me to see the following.
It used to be important to have a To-Do list and to stick to it. But nowadays, with electronic and other kinds of distractions vying for our time, it’s more important to stick to the Not to Do List. Some tips that explain what I mean:
- Go on your calendar regularly, see the things you have scheduled, and ask yourself: Do I really need to do that? Is there someone else who can do it?Does it need to be done at all?
- Don’t check your email first thing in the morning. Decide what your priorities are for the day, and then check your email. Don’t let your emails grab a hold of you before you have a handle on what you want to accomplish today.
- Don’t multi-task during certain hours of the day. When you are distracted from one thing by another, it can take up to 11 minutes to get back on track after you return to the first thing. So when you try to multi-task, you’re burning a lot of extra time on things that should take less time. (I’ve heard multi-tasking compared to being stoned for this reason!
Yes is easy, but no is hard. So it’s more difficult to stick to your Not-to-Do list than your To-Do list.
But if you really want to get anything done, that’s what you have to do.
What’s on your Not to Do list?
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