read time: 3 minutes

don't feel like reading? listen to the audio version here​

The best productivity hack I’ve ever stumbled on isn’t a To-Do List.

It’s a To-Don’t-Do List.

A man asked his gardener:

"How do you make your plants grow so beautifully?"

The gardener replied:

"I don't force them to grow. I simply remove that which stops them."

Michelangelo said something similar...

When asked how he carved the statue of David, he said:

"It's simple. I just remove everything that is NOT David."

This is one of my favorite mental models.

I call it Addition through Subtraction.

Often, on our quest to achieving whatever it is we've set out to achieve, we begin by looking in all the wrong places.

We look for the magical thing we're currently NOT doing that would somehow make all the difference.

And this is why people are generally so infatuated with studying the habits and routines of successful people.

"Surely they're doing something I'm not..." we think.

But the truth is, they're not.

You are probably already doing most of the right things.

The problem is... you're probably also doing a lot of the wrong things that counteract and cancel out those right things.

And an annoying little quirk of the universe is that the things which are bad for us tend to compound faster than the things which are good for us.

You can undo an entire week's worth of exercise with one meal.

You can destroy decades worth of trust in a second.

You can lose a lifetime worth of wealth on a single bad bet.

These aren't bugs, they're features.

And knowing how the software runs is step one in crafting a strategy that maximizes your odds of reaching your desired endstate.

For me, this means keeping a little cheat sheet that I call my Not To Do List.

This is a running list I keep in a Notes file which I know, if I can just avoid doing these things on a daily basis, will do far more in getting me to my goals than any To-Do List ever could.

Here’s mine:

Now it’s your turn.

Hit reply and tell me the 3 things you know are your biggest time and energy sucks that you’re NOT going to fall into the trap of doing today.

(I personally read every single email)

Stay Hyperfocused, My Friend
AV

P.S. I live by a simple motto: do less, but better. Watch this to learn the 6 rules of Essentialism that guide this little philosophy that has transformed my businesses (and life).