Don’t Do’s & Redecorating
The Benefits of Having a Don’t-Do List
Image by Kadir Celep from Unsplash
While people routinely create to-do lists, few have taken the time to create a Don’t-Do list.
Having particular things you don’t do is ultimately about cognitive load, identity, ease, automaticity, and life management.
A Don’t-Do list clears the field in ways, as it allows increased agency in terms of how we spend our time and with whom we spend out time.
Seth Godin emphasizes the game-changing effect Don’t-Do’s can have on character and career, citing the importance a Don’t-Do list holds for one who seeks to be a craftsperson.
Craft is an approach, a practice performed with intention and agency. Artist Joyce Lovelace calls craft a value that can be applied to any endeavor — gardening, programming, pottery, teaching, cleaning, and even lifestyle.
Craft is about handling time, ideas, vision, responsibility, materials and process with care. Moving from being a reactive person who engages in whatever pops up, to becoming a craftsperson who handles ideas, materials and process with thought and care is indeed game, career, and life-changing.
Image by Giulia Squillace from Unsplash+
Eliminating behaviors involves a use-of-time, use-of-focus shift in mindset that will afford you opportunities to invest energy into the work, causes and experiences you value most. Author Sarah Knight calls this type of shift mental redecorating. How do we go about redesigning/redecorating our go-to thought-processes concerning use of time and focus? Three steps toward mindset redesign include:
Realize that the criticisms people offer often provide loads of information about them and not much about you. There will always be naysayers who find reasons things won’t work out, who focus on insignificant detail, and who come up with problems for every solution.
Talk to yourself as a friend, not an annoyance or an enemy, and part ways with self-consciousness about your less-mainstream ways of being. Who you are is of far more importance than where you were born, what you have, your education, or your bank balance. Stand for something, cultivate your character, and remember who you are.
Feel less obligated. People routinely categorize tasks and events that are not obligations as obligations. Don’t say yes when you shouldn’t, can’t, or truly don’t care to say yes. Determine what works for you in terms of your wellness and priorities, and decline invitations and requests in a matter-of-fact polite manner when it’s time to do so.
Along with forming positive habits, deciding on things we don’t do can help guide us toward behaviors and identities we seek to adopt. If we are intentional about the way we curate time, resources, energy, and mindset, we each can become a craftsperson who handles people, ideas, materials, vision, and process with career and life-changing thought and care.