What’s on your “Not-To-Do” list?

On the path to your happiness, your peace, and your success, you can find that what you stop doing is just as important as the things you start doing.

In order to create something real, something good, something rewarding, you need to carve out and throw out all the possible ways that something will not be.

Think of Michelango’s David. It’s been said that he chose to carve away everything that did not look like David.

And when my sister and I were in the museum in Florence, Italy, and saw David, I was even more taken with Michelango’s four sculptures that were called The Unfinished Slaves, where we could see the figures emerging from the rock.

The four unfinished slaves revealed eloquently Michelangelo’s sculptural process: the figure would be outlined on the front of the marble block and then Michelangelo would work steadily inwards, in his own words,

“liberating the figure imprisoned in the marble.”

As the more projecting parts were brought to a fairly finished state those parts further back still were only rough-hewn. Thus the figures of these slaves literally appear to be struggling to be free.

So, what does this have to do with

your “Not-To-Do” list?

You know there are only so many hours in your day. And there’s only so much one tiny, 3-pound collection of human neurons called your brain can handle.

So choose carefully!

• If you want your life to be peaceful, you’ll want to remove those things that make you angry.
• If you want to be effective, you’ll want to remove those time-wasters.
• If you want to be loving, you’ll want to remove those unloving thoughts, words, and actions.

I remember when I was in one of my compulsive productivity modes, that someone told me to cut my daily To-Do list in half and keep doing it until I understood that some of that stuff didn’t really need to be done at all! It sure made it easier to feel successful and productive when I no longer had such a long list of things that didn’t get done!

By trying to do it all, it’s been said that we end up “making a millimeter of progress in a million directions,” rather than creating significant progress on one task.

I think it’s only after I stopped trying to do everything that I really started getting the right stuff done.

So, here’s my latest personal Stop-Doing list

It might give you some ideas!

• Acting like I really care about which team wins the game when I don’t.
• Trying so hard to make someone change their mind when it doesn’t really matter
• Spending too many hours wandering around on Pinterest
• Ignoring the fact that there are often undesirable consequences to the choices I make (like eating the whole container of Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream!)

I like what Lin Yutang wrote,

“Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of nonessentials.”

Are there any activities, feelings, or thoughts that you might want to

have on your “Not-To-Do” list?

Tags: Lin Yutang, not to do list, Steve Jobs, to do list