Do Not Do List
Personal Development
September 21, 2015
Will Lukang
Topics
Invaluable Laws of Growth, Leadership, Management, organizationLast week, I was teaching part three of the 15 Invaluable Laws Of Growth at our company. As I was presenting, one topic, what came to mind is the Do Not Do List.
Like anyone, I often struggle as I work at overcoming some of my weaknesses in life. This is a daily challenge and I persevere to keep at it. So I thought it would be appropriate for me to write an article on this topic.
What is a do not do list? A do not do list is a list of things that are holding you back. It could include habits, practices or behaviors that prevent you from making progress.
On my list, procrastinating is number one. I have the tendency to put things off because I think that I can get it done tomorrow. This habit has caused me a lot of trouble because I fail to accomplish the things that I need to do, therefore I cannot move to the next step.
Create A List
Fold a piece of paper in the middle. Write the headers weaknesses on the top left section and action items on the right side. THen take the next steps:
- List Your Weaknesses – These are habits, behaviors and practices that are holding you back.
- Write It Out - Write each weakness on the left side of the paper and on the right side list action items that you need to do to improve or eliminate your weakness. More importantly, state when you will work on it
- List The Impact Of Each Item To Your Life – How much impact does it have? Does it hold you back? Mark it as High - for very impactful, Mid - for impactful, or Minor — for little impact, for the level that it holds you back.
- Prioritize – Do this by marking the most impactful first. High impact to minor impact
- Start now – Don’t wait another day. Start now and make it happen
- Persevere & Be Persistent – Don't stop.
Consistency Is The Key To Your Success
Once you have the list, you need to change your habits and the things that you do in your life. In order to make progress, we must change our habits.
There will be days we don’t feel like working on our weaknesses, but a day wasted means we are day away from achieving our goals. Keep at it and be persistent. Writing is a labor of love; share this to people you know will benefit from reading it.
Let me know if it works for you by leaving a comment.
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I enjoyed this post, Will! Procrastination is a very tough nut to crack, for sure!
Procrastination is the hardest one to work on. But when you’re persistent and focus on incremental progress you can conquer it.
The genesis of the post was to highlight a few things that can help folks achieve progress.
Thanks I enjoyed this, that is a great little list too!
Raymond,
I’m glad your enjoy the post. Feel free to share the post to your friends.
Hi, Will – excellent post.
The idea of identifying what we should stop doing resonates strongly with me and you have done a nice job of creating an action plan to help us accomplish this important developmental task.
I especially like the inclusion of the relative impact exercise, where we have to consider the weight of the thing we should not do and its impact. Too often we are just told to stop doing a certain list of things, without considering that all non-productive tasks are equal.
The power that comes to us from figuring out which things to stop first, based on the weight of their impact on us, is gold, in my opinion. This both gives us a better way forward by identifying what will produce the most positive momentum as we change, but it also helps us avoid (or at least openly acknowledge) wasting time on things which are more easily given up or stopped, but which have lesser impact on us.
Change requires motivation, which can come from feeling the immediate and substantial impact of letting go of something. You are helping us make this a reality as we move forward:)
John
A list in itself is meaningless if we don’t understand the negative impact of each of the item on the list and how it is holding you back. By understanding the impact, we can better assess with one to work on. Otherwise we would bite more than we can chew and fail at it. The temporary setback can cause us to give up.
In closing, I agree that change require motivation and encourage. Presence of both can you conquer the challenges. Have a great day!
A list in itself is meaningless if we don’t understand the negative impact of each of the item on the list and how it is holding you back. By understanding the impact, we can better assess with one to work on. Otherwise we would bite more than we can chew and fail at it. The temporary setback can cause us to give up.
In closing, I agree that change require motivation and encourage. Presence of both can you conquer the challenges. Have a great day!
Great topic Will – it is amazing how it is so easy to overlook our bad habits – I like the idea of not to do list.
Bad habit is indeed easy to overlook, because it is part of us that we think it is a normal behavior. By being conscious and aware of our challenges, we can slow improve to achieve our goal.
I would say that my biggest bad habit is surfing the Internet, stumbling on a post and wasting even more time bothering to ‘add my opinion’ in reply. Having said that, your post brought this very bad habit to my attention with added clarity and a renewed sense of urgency to get rid if it.
‘Things not to do list’ is a great idea.
Hi Stephen,
Glad you like the do not do list. Sometimes surfing the web gives you the opportunity to find new nugget of information.
Have a great day!