Trading in my To-Do List for a Not-To-Do List

How to do less in order to accomplish more.

Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash

I’ve always been a fan of to-do lists. As a child, my mother would write out a list of chores for me to accomplish each week. (Clean my room, run the vacuum, take out trash, etc) I delighted in crossing the items off, one by one, until I eliminated every last one. In school, I maintained various to-do lists. There would be one for class projects to be completed throughout the semester. Another list would enumerate my weekly assignments. Still a third might tally up the exam schedule for the term. To-do lists were the way I scheduled my life. As an adult, I still found to-do lists to be the hallmark of life structure. No longer ruled by the dictates of the classroom, I turned my attention to the everyday goals in my life. My adult to-do list would contain items like this: — Schedule appointments — Hair, Doctor, Oil Change, Manicure, etc . . . — Schedule social activities — lunch dates, dinner dates, drinks after work, obligatory family functions, etc . . . — Schedule obligatory work commitments — meetings, travel, assignments due, goals to be achieved, efforts to make towards achieving those goals, etc . . . — Schedule fitness related activities — two days of spin classes, time at the gym for the treadmill, time at the gym to chat with old friends and, perhaps, make a new acquaintance or two, etc . . . — Schedule time for grocery shopping — buy enough fruits and veggies for the week, buy ingredients for home cooked meals so I wouldn’t be as tempted to eat out or go to the drive-thru on the way home, stock up on “healthy” snacks, etc . . . Have I thoroughly bored you yet? Maintaining my to-do list was simply one more item to check off of my to-do list! My calendar was little more than a perpetual list of obligations, each designed to achieve a “balanced” life — I’ll forgive you if you read “boring” life in that last statement.

A Change of Heart I’m not sure when I had my light bulb moment. Perhaps it was on a day where I reviewed my to-do list and realized I was no longer checking off every little item as I had done with my childhood list of household chores. I was often leaving as much undone as I was getting things done. Life, it seemed, was getting in the way of my good intentions. Somewhere along the way, I had outgrown my to-do list. My New World Order I’m still a big list fan, make no doubt about it. Today, however, I view my list as a “not-to-do” list. And, in reality, once firmly established, the not-to-do list doesn’t need nearly as much maintenance as the former list. Here is the Basis of my Not-To-Do list: — Eliminate toxic people from life as much as possible. Toxic people are basically needy souls who take the joy of living from you physically and emotionally with their constant need for attention to their problems. Their lives are awful and they want to make sure you know it — constantly. Eliminate them and gain a significant chunk of time to devote to things that actually matter to YOU. — Eliminate crazy, unobtainable goals that don’t mesh with reality. Forget the Olympian-style workout schedule you had on your to-do list — you never met those goals anyway. Instead, learn to appreciate every opportunity you find to incorporate smaller, achievable blocks of exercise into your daily life. Participate in a sport you actually enjoy. — At the top of your not-to-do list should be the goal to not allow technology to run your life. Your cellphone or computer should not be the pacemaker that keeps you alive. Set limited blocks of time for checking messages and emails. Likewise with random Internet surfing that just eats up time. Start looking people in the eye when you communicate with them instead of on your phone. Use vacation time as time to eliminate technology. Unless you’re a brain surgeon or the guy that carries the nuclear code in your pocket, you’re probably not nearly as irreplaceable in your job as you would like to think. — Eliminate the over-hyped concept of multi-tasking from your life. You almost certainly are not doing two or more things simultaneously and doing them to the best of your ability. Total focus on a single task will achieve better results than a shotgun approach to task management. This One is a Biggie! — Eliminate your constant striving for perfection. This does not mean you are lowering your standards in any way. Generally, perfection is in the eye of the beholder anyway. Look at the big picture to determine how much progress you’re making towards any goal. Nitpicking a project to death leads to delay, not accomplishment. When you actually achieve a goal, you (and everyone else) will be focusing on the overall success and not on every dotted “i” and crossed “t.” There is more to this life than you can ever hope to accomplish — with or without a to-do list. Learning what is important and eliminating frivolous tasks (including list making) is vital to your future success. You probably have a pretty good idea of what you should be doing. Now it’s time to take a look at what not to do.