You know all those to-do lists that are littering your desk right now? It’s time to throw them in the motherflippin’ bin.
Yep, your handy to-do lists might actually be doing you more harm than good.
When you create a do-to list, you basically jot down all the things you really should do but would rather not do.
Then you spend the rest of your time doing literally anything else just to avoid actually ticking things off your goddamn to-do list.
Like watching cat videos on Facebook, stalking someone you went to primary school with on Instagram, filing every email you’ve ever been sent, looking in the fridge for the 13th time that day, and writing, erm, more to-do lists.
Sound familiar?
So basically you need to put down that to-do list, flip it and reverse it (Is it worth it? Let me work it) and completely change your process.
Instead of writing down all the things you need to do and then actively avoiding them – write down all the things you should actively avoid and then JUST DON’T DO THEM.
Tim Ferriss, entrepreneur and author of The 4-Hour Work Week, is a big fan of the not-to-do list. He says not-to-do lists are often more effective in increasing productivity because “what you don’t do determines what you can do”.
Top Comments
My fiancé is a big fan of Tim Ferris but the best thing he has out me onto as an alternative to the To Do List (mine is many pages long!) is OTT: Organize Tomorrow Today: 8 Ways to Retrain Your Mind to Optimize Performance at Work and in Life, by Jason Selk, Tom Bartow, Matthew Rudy.
Essentially the day before (not the night before) take ten minutes at most to write out the top three priorities for tomorrow, and when you will complete them by. The aim to to do them before lunchtime. Pick one of the top three as your focus task, the Big One, to do first as a priority. Then you'll do the other two. Wrote no more than that. It definitely clarifies your time and will make you feel as if you had a productive day, not simply see all the things that didn't get done on your list of 12 things - as I used to do.