Until a few years back, I used to have my daily, weekly, short-term, mid-term and long term goals all figured out, documented, and reviewed at bedtime and a few times during the day. I had goals figured out for various aspects of my life: like professional, personal growth, family, travel, social and what not! I did not use any productivity tool or app. I simply put my to-do list in the Notes style and would stack rank in priority order on a continuous basis.
It resulted in having a super productive, organized, and thoughtfully designed calendar and helped keep my focus. I used to get a feeling of accomplishment when striking items out.
So, why am I talking about not-to-do lists?
I realized that my to do list was becoming longer & broader with lots of items at the bottom staying there permanently. I started spending time reviewing and moving things around in different categories rather than getting those done. I overdesigned my time, areas of focus and multitasking. At the end of the day, it started feeling that I could have optimized my time more and achieved more. I was in a state of persistent multitasking, overthinking and exhaustion. My attention kept dividing more and more and I went into a thrashing state.. (continuous context switch with declining performance)! And, it started draining my energy.
So, why didn’t I remove some items..
Because, removing the items from the list was not working. I tend to add those back as they are always a hope that probably I could get to those if time permits. Removing those items from my notes did not take those out of my mind. I had to find some other way to train my mind…
Thinking more about it, I figured that I have to tell myself everyday what not to do and it has to belong in my notes/goals but just in a different place. I started writing things down for “not doing”. My notes evolved to 2 column lists: To-do and Not-to-do.
This simple hack of visual “Not-to-do” did the trick. Since I started moving items into Not-to-do, instead of deleting them completely, those items did not leave my mind. Instead I started building deeper self-awareness to not get distracted by those and moving my attention off of those as needed. For some tasks, I started adding a term “Not-to-do YET”. So, it keeps me hopeful and optimistic of getting to it someday, as it did matter to me..
I am trusting that this lifehack can be of use to many others too, hence I am sharing it here.Stay productive by making not-to-do lists..
