Instead of To-Do Lists, Your Wellbeing May Be Crying Out for a ‘To-Don’t’ List

Even with things that are generally ‘good for you,’ continually adding more of them to your schedule has diminishing returns that may actually be working to grind you down and burn you out.

ABC News’s Emily McGrorey recently recounted a visit to her psychologist where she expressed her desire to start a morning meditation practice, but instead, was recommended to abandon the plan—along with several other habits she had already built up, because it was just too much.

She was told she needed a ‘to-don’t’ list.

Sitting down and writing out goals, tasks, or objectives can lead to valuable neurological orientation, and this phenomenon is typically leveraged through to-do lists. The same principle works in reverse. Taking time to write out the overburdening and absolutely non-essential activities that were clogging up McGrorey’s day made her realize just how non-essential or postponeable some of them were.

Amantha Imber, an organizational psychologist and podcast host who spoke to McGrorey on the topic, said that even though time is finite, we’re always adding more things to our to-do list in the hope that it will get us ahead.

I’ve felt this before: if I eat lunch while working rather than take a break to do so, I can finish 30 minutes earlier, which will allow me to do my next task earlier, so I have time to do something else after that. That way I’ll be ready to start dinner at 5:40.

“Obviously, there are things in life that do drain me, but I have to say yes to them because as a mother, for example, some things just have to get done. But a lot of the time, when I think about the things that are draining me, they’re things that I can either stop doing or that I can delegate”.

Some of the things that McGrorey put on her to-don’t list will sound familiar to many.

Not to schedule meetings between 8:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m.

Put casual clothes on a non-wrinkle tumble dry cycle rather than ironing them.

 Don’t wash dishes or clothes every day of the week, but every other day.