Are you a list lover? Does organizing your time into perfectly prioritized flow charts of errands and activities really turn you on? Well today is your lucky day, because there is a new list in town. It’s called the NOT-to-do list.
A not-to-do list is a list of activities, attitudes, and actions that are not serving your highest good. It’s a list of habits you recognize as unhealthy and therefore intend NOT to do. It’s a great exercise for when you are feeling frustrated, because in a frustrated state of mind, knowing what you DON’T want is the only way to clarify what you DO want.
If you don’t know what you want to do with your time, what is it that you DON’T want to do?? What habits hold you back? What attitudes swallow you into stagnation? Jot them down. This is your not-to-do list.
Your not-to-do list may look something like this:
I intend not to:
• Work at an unfulfilling job
• Hang out with energy-sucking “friends”
• Suppress my emotions
• Overload my body with low vibratory food
• Blame, judge, or criticize others
• Victimize myself
• Criticize myself
• Attempt to prove myself
• Maintain shallow friendships and relationships
• Abuse alcohol
• Absorb fear-based media
• Gossip
• Ignore my intuition
• Follow the crowd
You’ll notice that some of your negative habits are intertwined. For example, suppressing your emotions goes hand in hand with eating junk or abusing alcohol. Following the crowd is tied in with gossiping or hanging out with energy-draining people. The good news is that crossing off just one of the tasks on your not-to-do list can have a viral effect and will instantly annihilate some of your other negative habits.
You don’t have to refer to your not-to-do list everyday; it’s simply a tool to help you become more honest about what’s working in your life and what isn’t. Once you write the truth out on paper, it’ll be difficult for you to remain in denial about how healthy some of your actions really are. It may even lead you to some new conclusions about why it is you do what you choose to do.
Once you feel open and honest about the items on your not-to-do list, you can use it to create a new list of affirmative intentions for your life – a master TO-DO list. This is easy, because all you have to do is write down the opposite of some of the habits you noted on your not-to-do list.
Your new master to-do list might look something like this:
I intend to:
• Create / find a fulfilling job that utilizes my talents
• Hang out with uplifting & inspiring friends
• Be open with my emotions
• Nourish my body with the most radiant food available
• Support, love, and inspire those around me
• Take responsibility for myself
• Love & honor myself
• Create deep and meaningful friendships and relationships
• Look for good news in the world
• Follow my intuition
• Boldly do my own “thing”
Your master to-do list IS something you can read and refer to everyday. Use it as a guide to help you make decisions and prioritize your activities. Consciously make choices that are in alignment with the vibe of your master to-do list.
Above all, be compassionate with yourself when you create your lists. It’s not an excuse to beat yourself up for imperfection. It’s just an introspective exercise designed to lead you into the blissful, fulfilling, healthy life you are meant to live.
Hi Karen, I love this idea! I don’t do many things I don’t like / want to these days, but there is defintely a few to work on … I will start a list.
Yeah, I definitely know what I don’t want….but figuring out what I do want has been a challenge, particularly on the career front. I’m really wrestling with figuring out what my true intention is in life. Over the past few months I have been really stressing about it pretty hard, so I’ve kind of eased off a bit. A lot of the stress came from feeling this ‘need’ to stay ridiculously connected via social media (particularly Twitter and commenting on a zillion blogs). I realized I was spending too much time on these low impact activities. I have been spending quite a bit more time now meditating and focusing inward, which I think is helping a bit. What I have to do is get out of negative patterns of thinking such as ‘what would I do if I leave me job?’ ‘how would I make money?’ ‘what am I actually good at that I could do?’ On the face, these questions don’t seem horrible, but it can be a vicious cycle of never-ending questioning, which leads to stress (at least for me). I want to try to focus more intuitively. Maybe I need to journal more!
So simple, yet so powerful!
I love your blog, Karen! Especially the videos.
Keep it up!
I have something in that direction for my daily time management; it’s called UnSchedule.
It’s like a schedule, with all the days and hours, but instead of putting in tasks first, I reserve time to sleep, rest and do funny stuff first, then allocate the tasks within the remaining time.
Been doing it for a year now and it really helps doing some boring work at the computer if you know fun time is just around the corner!
It also shows me that I sleeeep a lot…well, that’s the way God made me!