The To-Don’t List

Expired cheese balls shouldn’t be the only thing on your to-don’t list. This one’s a game-changer, friends. I am a big advocate for lists. I live by my Fierce 15 and can’t seem to go anywhere without my notebook, planner and a pad or two of sticky notes. If it’s not on the list, it’s not happening. Can you relate?

Recently, while cleaning out the office food cabinet (home of the expired cheese balls) that had gone untouched since March 2020 (a.k.a The Shutdown), I rediscovered the Optimal Living podcast. The focus of that episode? Your to-don’t list.

The podcast reads (with permission) excerpts from books and blogs, this one is from Helene Massicotte of Free To Pursue had me hooked. Essentially you look at all of those things hanging on the fringe of your list that deep down you know you will never do and let them go.

The pants you were going to take to be altered. The book you read just 20 pages of that’s still sitting by your bed after two years. The almost-started craft project or ‘how to play guitar’ book that you haven’t gotten the guitar for yet. Maybe it’s a task that just keeps lingering but you see as too time-consuming or daunting that you could cut or pass off.

As they poured out examples, I could feel myself getting lighter. Just hearing the idea was already setting me free. Whatever is on the to-don’t list, you can free yourself of. I write about unnecessary stress. This is one of those things!

Give the item away or recycle it. Delegate or eliminate. No more pressure, no more walking by the broken tooth fairy box I swore to glue back together five years ago.

The release of this unannounced pressure was so freeing. It was unnecessary stress I so desperately needed to cut but had been completely oblivious to.

Maybe it had something to do with the four-month-old cheese puffs I was debating on trying just to test the due date (…it’s not real cheese anyway, right?) But something in that moment had me mentally making a list of all the things I was going to eliminate from my to-don’t list.

Give it a try – but skip the expired cheese balls. Cut the unnecessary stress and let’s move on to more Optimal Living.