Not To Do List: It is as Important as a To-Do List

The negativity bias states that people are almost twice as much influenced by negative events as their positive equally intense counterparts (such as finding $5 or losing $5). This means that despite many positive things that we want to do, we also need to be aware of the negative spectrum of reality, making a Not To Do List. In other words, it is not only important to make the right moves, but also to avoid mistakes.

Example of Not To Do List

1. Consumption — In a world where virtually everything is on sale, we need to make sure we don’t buy the wrong things. This can be bad for our wallet, time, energy, and emotional well-being. Take drugs for example. Everyone knows they are wrong, yet so many people keep on taking them. It is a destructive addiction, which claimed countless lives and will still claim countless more.

But drugs are on the further end of the negative spectrum. On a more socially acceptable level of consumption, we have alcohol, gambling, eating unhealthy food, etc, etc.

2. Sleeping around — We live in a society where Tinder says that a potential match is around the corner. This makes us overly picky and critical of our potential partners, rarely quite satisfied with them, and looking at their flaws, rather than what they can give us. We dream of a perfect person, just like in fairy tales, who will come and save us from the social madness and we do go around looking for them. Sometimes we go through many different partners before we decide on someone we like. And then still there may be something less than perfect with them, but after a while, we decide to settle down.

Yet, the problem of going through many partners (aka sleeping around) is that this experience leaves us overstimulated, never quite satisfied, and looking over the corner for a better deal. It is therefore not surprising that 50% of married couples end up in divorce. They see options besides the one they got, they are more easily persuaded to give up, and they take less time to properly sort through their options before making the irreversible decision (to make a relationship CV).

All-in-all, we don’t just need to make a list of things that we want to do, but we also need to make a Not To Do List and treat it as we would for just about everything else in life, look at every category of things for ideas on what we don’t want.