Many people create a daily ‘to do' list; however, few use another essential tool which I call a Stop List. In many ways, this is a ‘NOT to do' list. Yet, this document does not need to be created daily as it focuses on two kinds of behaviors: bad habits and major time wasters.
Major time wasters are easy to pinpoint. These are low-value activities that absorb more of your time than they should. My favorite example is excess TV watching; however, other examples include bad relationships or active participation within a club\organization that gives you little satisfaction.
Many of our daily activities are based on habits. This is normally a good thing as many habits save time, thought, and energy. Habits are established patterns that can make one efficient. However, those habits that have a negative impact on our life should be removed. Some common examples are talking with one's mouth open, smoking cigarettes, eating the wrong foods and\or in the wrong amounts, or interrupting others during conversations.
Instructions
1) Take 20 minutes to write down all your bad habits and time wasters. Be honest as no one but you will ever see this list.
2) Take 5 minutes to rank this list so that the first item is the one which you would most like to remove from your life as you realize it is a major constraint on your productivity, success, or happiness.
3) Unlike a list of Projects or Tasks, a Stop List should be very short. Learning to un-do habits is a challenge and a large list is counterproductive. Par down your active stop list so it only has the top three items from the overall list you created in step one.
4) For the next 28 days, focus on removing the first item on your list and ONLY the first item on your list. If you relapse into the activity, start over. Experts agree that the learning process to remove a habit takes at minimum 21 days. I suggest a full four weeks as that will insure you are ready. Alternatively, choose a full calendar month as the time span.
5) Once you have eliminated the first item from your life, it is time to move to the second item on the list. After a full 28 days of successfully removing that second habit, you can move on the third item on the list.
6) After all three have been vanquished, you may begin at step one to re-create a new Stop List. Life is like any other garden. This means that noxious weeds have a tendency to grow in one area while we are cultivating another. While perfection is neither possible nor the goal, Stop Lists are a great way to insure that a new bad habits do not anchor themselves in our lives.