Have a 'not-to-do list'!

‘You must keep your goals in sight, labour toward them day and

night.’

Wittner Byneer

Are you surprised at my asking

you to have a ‘not-to-do’ list? You

know of only a ‘to do’ list containing

the various things that we want to

do on that day or over a period of

time.

Having a ‘not-to-do’ list is also

important. If you carefully analyse

the various activities that you did on

a certain day, you may come across

activities that you need not have

done. If you had only avoided those

activities, they would have given

you a chunk of time that could have been used for some productive

purpose.

I came across a story that will explain this. There was a rock adjacent

to a road and many people passed by and did nothing. A sculptor passed

through that way and looked at the rock. He wanted to carve a beautiful

peacock out of it. He started chiselling and after several days of work,

he made a peacock. Now there was a peacock in the place where the old

rock stood.

Others asked him how he saw a peacock in the rock while they saw

only a rock. The sculptor replied that he did not bring anything new

into the rock and the peacock already existed in the rock. All he did was

to chip away every portion of the rock that did not resemble a peacock.

What remained was a peacock!

Like that sculptor, we should remove every activity

(From my book 'The Gift of Time')

N C Sridharan
www.thetimefoundation.com
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