☕ saturday mornings #30
following wisdom, play & not-do-do lists
Happy Saturday all,
I hope you’re having a lovely start to your weekend.
Below is your edition of “saturday mornings”, a weekly recap of what I’ve been testing, learning and exploring over the past few days.
Thanks for being here. Let’s dive in.
✍️Quote I’ve been thinking about:
“Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought.”
― Matsuo Basho (17th century Japanese poet)
This quote ties in nicely with the idea of being authentic versus trying to replicate other’s success in edition #28.
📖Book passage I loved:
"Climb the greatest mountain. Achieve all the accolades in the world. Become the greatest in your field. Achieve fame. Earn millions. And you will enjoy every bit of the journey, if and only if you understand that none of it means anything.
When something has meaning, it becomes work. When something is meaningless, it becomes play. The joy that you experience in honing your craft is the greatest reward.
Spending your life exactly the way you wish to spend it is a wonderful liberation. This is what sinks into the heart. This is the true experience."
— Atmamun: The path to achieving the bliss of the Himalayan Swamis, Kapil Gupta
🎨Picture I loved:
Credit: Tim Urban, Wait but Why
💡Idea I’m exploring:
Creating a not-to-do-list
A common idea I’ve noticed across my reading is that happiness is not derived from the addition of positives, but rather the elimination of negatives.
This same concept has been stated in many different ways by different philosophers, executives, and authors alike.
“One does not accumulate but eliminate. It is not daily increase but daily decrease. The height of cultivation always runs to simplicity.”
― Bruce Lee
“Perfection is not when there is no more to add, but no more to take away.”
― Antoine De Saint-Exupery
"Happiness is the absence of unhappiness. It’s our resting state when nothing clouds the picture or causes interference."
― Mo Gawdat
“I ask myself is this removing a negative in my life? It’s pretty well studied that happiness is not very much affected by adding positives to your life. It’s mostly accomplished by removing things that are a strong negative to every day.”
― Peter Adeney
With everyone obsessed with checking off to-do lists, I think the idea of a not-to-do list is compelling. Maybe it’s my inner contrarian.
So how does one begin to identify, reflect on and take action to remove negatives in their life?
A strategy I’ve mapped out for myself is composed of three steps: (i) 80/20 Analysis, (ii) Journaling, (iii) Creating a Not-to-do-List.
To begin, ask yourself the simple question: “What 20% of events/people/commitments are creating 80% of my negative emotion?”
I’ve realized that in my life, a small proportion of the events/people/commitments create a large proportion of my negative emotions (stress, anger, unhappiness, etc.) (And the same is true with positive emotion).
I then journal on each of the components that the 80/20 Analysis teased out. I try to understand why these conditions create negative emotion, why I continue to engage in them and what the real root causes are.
I’ve also found it helpful to do “fear-setting” to explore the worst case scenarios if I cut certain things from my life. And often, my fears are completely unjustified and the decisions are easily reversible (could get back to where I was before). If anything, it’s a one week low risk experiment.
The final step is to create a “not-to-do list”. In simplest terms, these are things that disproportionate amount of negativity in your life and you want to cap or cut out. It’s the exercise of consciously identifying the activities, habits, people, etc. that don’t deserve excess time or energy.
By writing these items out explicitly, you have a document to refer back to. I view it as making one decision that saves me from hundreds or thousands of future day-to-day decisions around how to allocate my time and energy.
As an example, here are a couple of the items on my recent not-to-do list:
Do not answer calls from unknown numbers.
Do not check email first thing in the morning or last thing at night
Do not check email constantly — “batch” and check at set times only.
Do not carry a smartphone 24/7.
Do not go into meetings without a list of outcomes and an agenda.
Do not always consume content. Set aside time for quiet and clear thinking.
Do not sacrifice getting +7-8 hours of sleep per night. (Matthew Walker scared me into this one).
Do not (Try not to) criticize or complain.
I have days where I don’t strictly adhere to my “not-to-do’s” and fall off the wagon. It’s not going to be perfect. Yet, having this list allows me to reset and begin again.
As Tim Ferriss reminds us “not-to-do lists are often more effective than to-do lists for upgrading performance. The reason is simple: What you don’t do determines what you can do.”
❓Question for reflection:
How am I complicit in creating the conditions I say I don’t want?
That’s all for this week’s edition of “saturday mornings”.
There will not be an edition next week due to the holidays.
As always, if you have any feedback or thoughts, I’d love to hear from you. I’m always looking to refine these newsletters and create better content for my readers.
Have a lovely and restful weekend.
Much love to you and yours,
Thomas