The Not-To-Do List
3 tips to avoid distraction and become more productive as a byproduct
We all have our never-ending to-do lists.
Not only do we rarely get through our full list in a day, we often punt tasks from one day to the next — resulting in a bottomless list that only serves to remind us of our incompetence rather than our goals.
In an age of incredibly accessible distraction, Tim Ferriss, author of “The 4-Hour Workweek”, suggests using a Not-To-Do List rather than a to-do list, for the simple purpose of making it as easy as possible to get the actual productive work done.
Here’s my Not-To-Do List that I’ve used to make productivity as streamlined as possible, with inspiration from Tim Ferriss and others.
1. Do Not Use My Phone Before Lunch
This is quite possibly the best–and the most difficult Not-To-Do on this list.
Our phones have gotten so addicting.
They are our alarm clocks, our email machines, and our note-taking devices.
Often the homes of our second brains and calendars, it’s easy to trick yourself into thinking you’re doing something productive — only to realize you’ve spent the last 30 minutes scrolling through brain-rot on TikTok.
Not using my phone before lunch has allowed me to make the most of the morning focus that comes as part and parcel of our daily rhythms and start the day with a win.
2. Do Not Say “I’m Busy”
I don’t allow myself to say “I’m busy” anymore.
Being “busy” means a lack of prioritization.
If I’m “too busy” to hang out with friends, it doesn’t mean that I don’t have the time — it means that I either failed to prioritize my day or I have priorities other than hanging out with friends.
This doesn’t mean I say no to all hang-outs in favor of the grind. In fact, I always try to prioritize hanging out with friends as that’s a source of great happiness for me.
However, not allowing myself to say “I’m too busy” for anything has forced me to realign my priorities for the day and remove the luxury of shifting the blame onto other things.
My schedule is my responsibility, and I’m never “busy” — that’s only ever an excuse.
3. Do Not Disturb — The Best Productivity Hack
Unfortunately, I’ve become one of those DND abusers.
My phone is now perpetually on some type of personalized do-not-disturb mode. I started this practice last year and haven’t looked back since.
My daily phone usage peaked at an average of 8 hours per day at the most screen-addicted point of my life and it was then that I realized I needed to change.
Using a personalized do-not-disturb mode, I’ve been able to curb my incessant notification checking.
I now only allow a few notifications to actually buzz me in the moment: calls or texts from immediate family, emails to my work email (working on phasing this out too btw), and notifications from a short list of close friends.
Anything else simply isn’t urgent and doesn’t need to ever buzz me and take me out of my life.
This list isn’t entirely comprehensive, but it’s the highest leverage activities I’ve used.
Not only has it made me more productive simply through the reduction of distractions, but I also find that my internal mental chatter has gotten quieter as a result. It seems that, in the age of distraction, you can win simply by not being distracted
We’ll never reach a point where our to-do lists are eternally empty.
By implementing a Not-To-Do List though, we can get closer and closer to scratching more items off that list by sheer absence of distraction.
What would you put on your Not-To-Do List? Let me know in the responses!
