Coaching practices for The Not to Do List with My Team

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For The Not to Do List with My Team, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

  • I keep telling myself I’ll cut back on the things that drain me, but every single time the moment comes I cave and say yes again
  • My team is buried under recurring meetings and reports that everyone privately thinks are pointless, but no single person can just kill them
  • My to-do list has everything I could ever conceivably do crammed onto it, so there’s no honest line between someday-maybe and what I’m actually committing to today
  • My list is just a flat wall of tasks that all look equally urgent, so I keep grabbing whatever’s easiest instead of whatever matters
  • My to-do list has swollen into a dumping ground for every someday-maybe idea I’ve ever had, so it’s less a plan than a wall of guilt

Practices that may help

  1. The Not-To-Do List
    The not-to-do list is a set of behaviors, tasks, and commitments you commit to stopping or refusing — permanently. Tim Ferriss argues that elimination is more valuable than optimization because low-leverage activities consume time that no amount of efficiency can recover. The approach is largely practitioner advice backed by mechanistic reasoning about opportunity cost and attention.
  2. Write and commit to a standing not-to-do list
    Turn elimination candidates into an explicit, reviewed list of permanent refusals.
    The Not-To-Do List
  3. Run a regular team elimination review
    Periodically review what the team is doing that no longer serves any current goal.
    The Eisenhower Matrix for Teams
  4. Separate "will-do" from "to-do" lists
    Keep a master to-do list distinct from the closed daily "will-do" list that you actually commit to.
    Do It Tomorrow, Made Practical
  5. The ABCDE prioritization method
    Label every task A (must), B (should), C (nice), D (delegate), or E (eliminate) before starting.
    Eat That Frog, Made Practical
  6. Only put tasks on the board that you’ve explicitly decided to do
    Your Kanban board is not a wish list — only tasks you have consciously committed to belong in To Do.
    Personal Kanban, Made Practical
  7. Decline meetings that lack a clear outcome and agenda
    Make a standing policy to decline any meeting invitation that doesn’t specify outcomes and an agenda.
    The Not-To-Do List
  8. Work from a closed daily list
    Write today’s task list before the day begins, then refuse to add new items to it.
    Do It Tomorrow, Made Practical
  9. Do a brief weekly review and planning session
    Each week, review what happened, clear the decks, and commit to next week’s MITs.
    Zen To Done (ZTD), Made Practical
  10. Treat items 6–25 as active avoidances, not a later list
    Everything not in your top 5 must be actively avoided — it is your "do-not-do" list.
    Warren Buffett’s Two-List Strategy

Related concerns

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