The Importance of Creating a not-to-do list

Staring at my blank journal page this morning, thoughts flooded my mind of things I want to stop doing. This year. This Month. Today. This is just one of the many reasons I love journaling.

As a writer, it feels like a natural extension of my work. It fuels my professional work but also brings blurry corners of my life into creative and productive focus.

Here’s a quick writing exercise for you: take out a pen and paper (or open a digital document) and list 10 things you’d like to stop doing.

Your not-to-do list.

Then, pick just one thing and decide today to stop. You can revisit your list every day (or week) and keep making tiny, incremental changes to your life.

Tiny steps scale mountains.

Sometimes we over-focus on the things we need to do when really, we would accomplish so much more if we stopped doing certain things. By habit, our days are filled with distractions and habits that probably aren’t serving us anymore.

Creating a not-to-do list helps you become aware of these time-sucking habits, and hopefully eliminate them.

Here’s my list. Most of these arent’ the traditional ‘productivity-related’ items, but they help me nonetheless. For me, it’s more about putting a stop to things that put me in a low, distracted, or self-critical state.

Here goes…

Today, I’ve decided to stop

Ignoring my voice

Restraining my laugh

Staying back

Holding in

Hiding truth

Covering up smiles

Listening to nonsense

Scrolling through time

Sitting still when I need to move

Moving when I need to sit still