To Don't Lists

[Ego]

I read somewhere that we should be called human DOings rather than human beings. We are doers and we live in an action-obsessed world. It is our greatest strength. It is also our greatest weakness.

My biggest goofs in life so far have been mistakes of commission. I rarely make a mistakes of omission where I screw up by not doing something.

We all use to-do lists to get the important stuff done. Does anyone use a to-don't list? What is on it?

It would seem that ERE attempts to foster a healthy balance of action and self-restraint. What would an ERE to-don't list look like?

[thebbqguy]

I am no where near ERE, but at the top of my list is the following rule:

Don't dwell in the past; should'a, would'a and could'a will drive you crazy.

I used to do it all the time, but once I recognized how much happier life is living in the here and now I don' t do it anymore. Some of the unhappiest people I know do not follow this rule.

[Tommy]

I do agree that sometimes it's what you don't do that matters than what you are doing (especially when it comes to health.)

A couple of things I'd add into such a list:
- Not smoking is always a profound long-run money saver. By simply not picking up this bad habit you are already doing yourself a favour.
- Not drinking alcohol. I think people under-estimate how much time/money they sink into their drinking hobby. I drink only very occasionally and I am frequently shocked at how much money people are willing to sink into one weekend's worth of alcohol binging.
- Not worrying about keeping up with other people's materialist spending, not worrying about other people judging you based on your material possessions.
- Not watching television. This is tantamount to unplugging yourself from the matrix. You only realise to what extent mass media controls you after you abandon it. A lot of the relentless pressure to consume and spend comes from television. Watching television is tantamount to voluntarily enslaving yourself into the consumerist system. Modern television is a drug, and is becoming increasingly more refined and potent as such. Abandoning television not only gives you the chance to think clearly once more, but also frees up a lot of time and energy to do something useful with one's life.
- Not eating sugar or things that have sugar added to them. It's hard to waste money on refined junk food if one follows this rule (it pretty much rules out >50% of food products in my local big supermarket). The health benefits are obvious.

The first 2 points, was just how I was raised. The 3rd point I learned while growing up. The last 2 were things I figured out as I grew wiser as an adult.

[George the original one]

Do not subscribe. Subscriptions condition you into spending for goods & services you likely aren't fully using. Cable TV with 200 channels (you can only watch so many channels at a time), cellphones with unlimited minutes/data, magazines you read once and toss.

[Dragline]

Don't eat food that always (or almost always) comes packaged in cardboard boxes or plastic bags.

If you watch any TV, don't watch TV news channels unless there's actually a crisis going on.

Don't go shopping without a specific list.

Don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys.

Don't stop thinking about tomorrow.

[vivacious]

Do not subscribe. Subscriptions condition you into spending for goods & services you likely aren't fully using. Cable TV with 200 channels (you can only watch so many channels at a time), cellphones with unlimited minutes/data, magazines you read once and toss.

Yeah. Internet too. I'm all for internet but a lot of people are paying for way faster of a connection than they're really using.

[bo_knows]

- Not drinking alcohol. I think people under-estimate how much time/money they sink into their drinking hobby. I drink only very occasionally and I am frequently shocked at how much money people are willing to sink into one weekend's worth of alcohol binging.

You'll pry my homebrewed 13%abv apple wine from my cold dead hands. At $25 per 5 gallons, I think it's well worth it

But going out to bars is ludicrous. In my younger days, we had a few friends over to our house and were drinking some beers and chatting. Someone said "Let's go to the pub down the street!". We walked down there, sat at a table, could barely hear eachother over the music, and paid $6 for a beer. No one was utilizing the dance floor, our friends just wanted to be "at the bar". It was insane. Never again.

[C40]

Ego - this is a great thread/question...

Here are some off the top of my head. I should give this more consideration.

- Don't eat a lot of junk food
- Don't drink in excess
- Don't get really angry about things that don't matter
- Don't have sex with women I barely know just out of boredom / old habit / some instinctual urge
- Don't take life too seriously. (remember we'll all be dead soon and for us humans it's basically just a game now in many ways)

[jacob]

Don't violate the web of goals, lest you waste resources/it better be worth it!

[Tyler9000]

Things I'll be very proud on my deathbed to have never experienced in my life:

Cheating on my wife
Drug use
Jumping out of perfectly good airplanes


Things I'll reminisce about later as stupid youthful indiscretions to never be repeated:

Hangover-level intoxication
Debt / Loans
Working 60-80 hour weeks to impress a boss


Interesting how all of these are examples of cheap "in the moment" experiences that come back to bite you later or wear off quickly.

[riparian]

Here are some things my grampa told me:

Never give up.
Don't feel bad about yourself, it takes a lot out of you.
Don't talk unless you have something to say.
Don't disrespect nature, elders, animals, or relationships.
Don't get too carried away.
Don't ever let them know you're scared.
Don't be unprepared.
Don't lay around.
Don't write your speeches, speak from the heart so as not to lie.

Do:
Be proud of yourself. Say "I did it!"
Pay attention.
Be respectful.

Some things I've learned:
Never let someone else represent or profit from your labor.
Never make long term commitments.
Never turn away from knowledge or engage in denial.
Do things that scare you.

[theanimal]

Don't take anything personally. Whether it be positive or negative. All that matters is what you think.

[Ego]

Tim Ferris did a podcast on this. He called it the Not To Do List.

http://hwcdn.libsyn.com/p/4/6/a/46ab91a ... 6e057a42f8

[Ego]

Another take on these... anti-goals.
http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/201709 ... to-do-list

[BRUTE]

brute created a Not To Do list once. then he accidentally did several items off of it. weird feeling.

[FBeyer]

The tip I trust the most is to list the 15 things you want the most in your life.
Start by writing out everything you'd like to do and then distill the list ruthlessly down to 15 things.
Prioritize those things such that thing number 1 could almost sustain you on its own. Number 2 is tremendously important and so on and so on.

Now once you've spent (a possibly very long time) ordering your 15 most important things in life, draw a thick black line between item number 5 and item number 6. Everything from 6 to 15 is your avoid-at-all costs list because those things lure you, without adding to the absolutely most important things you want in life.

[rref]

.

[liberty]

- Don't lend out money to anyone privately (publicly traded bonds is okay)
- Don't hang out with boring/stupid people
- Don't discuss politics
- Don't read, watch or hear news
- Don't be altruistic - don't do anything to other people just to make them happy - always be selfish and do what benefits you
- Don't go into relationship with poor people - they likely have a poor mentality and will steal your money
- Don't use force/violence against other people (which implies: Don't go into politics, Don't work as a drug thief in the police, etc)
- Don't trust anyone, except maybe your closest family

[Jason]

Don't:

- Assume;
- Condescend;
- Take for granted;
- Gossip;
- Be seduced by the world;
- Speak unless you have a well informed, educated opinion;
- Engage in prolonged conversations with people who cannot footnote their opinions with legitimate source material;
- Do that which you know is wrong;
- Act impulsively or for purposes of self-gratification;
- Think about what people think about you. Most likely they are not, and if they are, its not beneficial;


Do:

- Your homework. And when you are done, do more.
- Find someone to love;
- Find something to love;
- Take every thought captive;
- Save your fucking money. And when you are done, save fucking more.

[7Wannabe5]

brute created a Not To Do list once. then he accidentally did several items off of it. weird feeling.

lol- Story of my life. I am so severely absent-minded, I can sometimes complete quite complex tasks without being "in the room." And, it is absolutely hopeless for me to even attempt challenges such as "DO NOT taste or nibble at food while you are cooking." I recognize that this is a problem I have, so I was even afraid to allow myself to drive a car, but it turned out that I am a very safe, although annoyingly slow driver. I think that maybe my adrenal glands were burnt out by asthma medications when I was a child. I can fall almost fall asleep on the back of a motorcycle, and Ritalin and cocaine had no effect whatsoever on me when I tried them.

Anyways, one thing that I do sometimes is attempt to put random challenges on my To Do list, because stuff I just pull out of my own head has been pre-programmed. For instance, I used to go to the library and randomly pick 5 books, and then challenge myself to integrate those books into my ToDo list or lifestyle. So, BRUTE or Ego might find himself with the challenge of integrating a book on the topic of making cute pom-pom pets from scrap yarn, and then he would have to work through his resistance to this random assignment.