Your "not doing it today" list

It's weird but it works / Issue 1,113

Oh, hi friends!

Do you believe it? 

Do you believe what you’re writing, saying, sharing, or selling?

You need to believe it first before anyone else will.

“What makes an effective community is not having people in it with the right expertise or information. What makes it work is people with the right intention and presence. It is most helpful to be with people who are trying to connect the dots and live in coherence with themselves and the world in an honest way. Being around a dentist who is doing a sincere job of turning into her best self is more encouraging and impactful, despite your being totally uninterested in dentistry, than being in community with someone who has exactly the same interests and career aspirations as you but who isn't being sincerely present and engaging honestly with his hopes and struggles.”

I found a lot of value in the book Designing Your Life (after a recommendation from newsletter reader Sean, who also told me he gives away copies of Do It For Yourself in his senior design class in biological engineering?! Thank you, Sean!). 

This passage from the book hit on something important — how so many of us have wildly different career paths, yet we can engage with one another because we’re all trying to connect the dots, and showing up with intention and presence. Thank you, for that.

Things I Am Not Doing Today

• This

• Also this

• Definitely not this

• Or that

• Not this either, at least not today

Sooo, I have this unattractive habit of writing down everything I might possibly want to do in a day in one long list. 

Inevitably, I do maybe three or six things on the list, but then feel bad once I look at those other dozen tasks I avoided. 

Didn’t do so much after all, huh. 

So last week I started writing another to-do list (under my actual list) titled “Things I Am Not Doing Today.” I added all the things I knew were longshots or which make sense to do another time or which need to be broken down into smaller steps.

My “not doing today” list made me laugh but…it actually helped? It was FREEING. If you try it, let me know how it goes!