330: You Need A Not-To-Do List
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What is a not-to-do list, and why do you need one? As small business owners, we have a lot on our plate and things that demand our attention. Being pulled in too many directions means we lose focus on the important things. Building a not-to-do list, we remove obligations from our days and are better able to refine what our actual duties are, while also breaking bad habits that waste time and money.
Main topics:
What is a not-to-do list
Why you need one
Emotionally draining tasks
Questions to ask yourself
Main take away: A not to do list is almost more of a conscious thing than a todo list because you are purposely saying I will NOT do this.
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
list, client, business, important, life, task, pet, delegate, deadline, cluttered, focused, check, ultimately, people, big, confessional, associates, boundaries, members, pet sitter
SPEAKERS
Meghan, Collin,
Meghan 00:10
Hello, I'm Meghan. I'm Collin. And this is Pet Sitter confessional and open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter.
Collin 00:19
You also have to remember that sometimes our to do list becomes so cluttered that in order to keep it refined and focused, it's easier to have a lot of things sitting over on the don't do list. So that our to do list is purely the things that we have to be working on that day. And the things that we have to get done or want to get done. So that this other list can kind of be the junk list of going, Okay, this is the one that I don't have to pay attention to. That goes over on this board, I've learned another thing. I'm not going to do these things. But I'm going to focus my attention over here.
Meghan 01:01
And with that, welcome to episode 330. Talking about not to do lists today. Thank you to pet sitters, pet sitters associates and our wonderful Patreon members like Catherine, Jan, Laurie, dog and cat cards and all of the other Patreon members that we have, we are very appreciative of your support your financial resources, and just all of the wonderful ideas that you bring to the show. If you would like to learn more about what a Patreon member is, you can go to petsitter confessional.com/support.
Collin 01:34
And we're really looking forward to our first Friday of the month monthly meet up November 4, where our Great Dane members and US will jump on a zoom call and see how everybody's doing catch up and just share and have a little bit of time to step away from the business and see how everybody's doing.
Meghan 01:50
So today we're going to talk about not to do lists. And that might seem funny, but we always talk about to do lists, we have them, they seem to be never ending, they can feel really overwhelming at times, because there's always more things that we need to add. And a lot of times these things are necessary in order to remember everything that we have going on we do our checklists, we have our our phones and with our calendars and everything. And so to do lists are super helpful in remembering the day to day tasks of, you know, deadlines that we have coming up and goals that we have set for ourselves personally in our business. So we've all heard about to do lists. But have you heard about not to do lists? Well, those are also very important to do. Not to do lists on your to do list.
Collin 02:37
Well, and just taking a step back to look at those to do lists. These do keep us focused, they keep us things highlighted that are important to us. And they keep us motivated. I know many people are very task oriented, they get high, a great feeling a lot of endorphin release of checking off that little box or crossing something off of a list. It helps them organize their thoughts for a day of going these are my tasks for the day. So having daily to do lists, weekly, monthly, annual to do lists is a great way to help structure and organize a lot of the chaos that we have. And whether you use a paper list or whether use an app. I know a lot of people use their calendar as a to do list other people use emails as their to do lists that keeps things in there that have top of mind for them. Whatever method that you decide, that's useful to play around with that and decide what is going to work best for you and how you operate.
Meghan 03:32
So while a to do list is important, a not to do list is also important. It's obviously filled with things not to do. And this can be something as simple as you know, I will not go to bed without brushing my teeth. Yeah, it's very simplistic and has really nothing to do with our businesses. But it's important to put that on your not to do list because you obviously want to remember to brush your teeth.
Collin 03:56
Well, basically a not to do list are things that you you don't do, no matter what you are either deleting them from your life, you're delegating them away from you, you're outsourcing them to somebody else. Or importantly here, you're simply saying no, when they try and find their way back onto that list that you have on your plate. One way of thinking about this is it's a conscious way of breaking bad habits or it's a conscious way of setting better boundaries in your life are a conscious way of leading a healthier mental, emotional, physical lifestyle by understanding these things. I as a person, I may because of my morals, ethics, values, goals and objectives in my life. I cannot do these things. They don't fit with who I am and where I'm going. So that can mean
Meghan 04:56
you know setting boundaries. I don't break boundaries. I have I do not answer my phone after 5pm, I do not answer my phone or check my phone at all after 9pm. There are these boundaries that we have in our lives and our businesses that we don't want to break. And so it's important to put those on your not to do lists.
Collin 05:17
Well, a lot of times, it's these weak spots that we have maybe a personal character that we have, where it's very easy for us to slip back into these behaviors and say, Oh, just one more client, I'll take that person who's a little bit further out from me, oh, I'll go and do this thing that I would never do again, or I never would give a discount or whatever that is where we want to do that we are people pleasers. In a lot of cases, we want people's business we feel we have that need. And so these these weak spots, they come back up, but we need to remind ourselves to say no, to prevent ourselves from going down that road. And sometimes it literally is writing them out on a post it note on a list to remind ourselves of that.
Meghan 06:00
A good example, here is your time. So it is all of our most valuable assets, we want to be paid for our time we want to be compensated for, you know, the work that we do. And so when you have maybe a project that is super big, but it ultimately it ultimately produces little value or little compensation for your time, it's important to cut those things out. Or like you mentioned delegate to somebody else.
Collin 06:25
It could be things like obsessively checking your phone, pulling to refresh on an email or on social media to see when something new comes up.
Meghan 06:35
Okay, I'm guilty of that. But if you
Collin 06:37
find yourself doing these little habits, these things in your life where you go, you know, this is, in some instances very important to my business, so that I stay on top of email. So I stay on top of comments, and I stay on top of the social media aspect. But at the end of the day, we have to look at that and go, how much value is this bringing to me. And that's going to fall out differently for everybody, depending on where you are in your business and what your role is in your business and where you see yourself. But that was just an example. So whatever that is, you can go, I'm doing this thing, and I feel like I should be but it's not bringing me a lot of value. So maybe that's something I don't need to do anymore. And that's gonna save me a little bit of time in the end.
Meghan 07:16
And in the same vein tasks that emotionally drain you. So we are on constantly in this business. We're going from sunup to sundown, and we're basically as we talked about, I think last week on the episode, switching tasks every 30 to 45 minutes, depending on how often your visits are. And so these, there's so much that is emotionally draining in our businesses. And so things tasks or projects, or even clients that, you know, maybe are a little more high maintenance, and you don't necessarily want to deal with that things that emotionally drain you are important for your not to do list.
Collin Funkhouser 07:54
And I think we do need to take a step back here and go what is what makes a not to do list different than a to do list other than it's just a list of things we don't want to do. I think there are a couple characteristics of things that go on the not to do list. Usually these items are either usually reoccurring things that come back over and over again, this kind of idea, this bad repetitive behavior, where we can't quite stop doing it. These things also have no deadlines or reminders in our lives. The thing about it to do list is we're trying to get them done in a certain time, we're trying to complete these for a certain reason. The not to do list is more to benefit us, and when we have no deadline for where it needs to happen. And then the other thing is, is that a to do list, we're constantly revisiting it, we're revising it, we're looking at it trying to see and refine it to make sure everything's on there that we need to be. We don't really do that with a not to do list. It goes on there once and then we're moving on as in we're going to be reminding ourselves that it's there but it's not something we're going to ever take off really because it needs to be there as a reminder to us
Meghan 09:02
so ultimately though it does help us stay focused just like a to do list you can check things off but not to do list helps us to stay focus as well because it kind of clears away the clutter. You know if you have on your not to do list, I am not going to mindlessly scroll on Facebook, when I get on Facebook I'm going to be intentional, that will ultimately help you not get distracted from everything else and just help you to it will be a guide for you to know what you're supposed to do a guided
Collin 09:31
I love that word making of staying focused because things that also go on the not to do list are things like worrying about other people's responsibilities or things that are outside of our control. If I start putting worry about how my clients will react to my price hike, if I put that on my to do list now I might not actually physically write that. But I do put that subconsciously on my to do list because I feel like as a business owner I need to worry about those things. So I feel like I need to do that I'm going to worry about that other person's responsibility, that other person's reaction that's totally out of my control that's cluttered in there. All of a sudden, were the things right next to pay my taxes, get the car oil changed, make sure that I have my insurance. Don't forget to schedule the meet and greet. Things that are actually truly, genuinely important to the functioning and vitality of my life in my business, are now cluttered up with these things that have no business being there. And so again, putting them on this not to do as allows them to take them off of our plate off of our mind and put them on this big list. To keep our actual to do list really refined and honed in on to what we want to do. And what we want to and what we need to be doing.
Meghan 10:46
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Collin 11:27
So what are some questions that we should ask ourselves about what really needs to go on our not to do list? Basically, how do we go from about finding what should go over there?
Meghan 11:38
So to figure out what exactly needs to go on a not to do list, you need to ask yourself a few big questions. And the first one is, is this task that you are performing? Is it necessary? Does it drain you? Do you enjoy doing it? How are you feeling when you're performing the task? Do you have negative emotions? Or are you pretty happy about it? Do you usually and this is a big one for a lot of people including me? Do you usually procrastinate when you perform this task? If so you probably either need to set up some different boundaries with it or set it to an earlier deadline. Or maybe delegate it to somebody else if you absolutely hate doing it. And then also, I mean, if there's stronger emotions in this if you feel guilt or anger after you have said yes to taking on the client or doing this project or whatever it is that you're doing. Do you have super strong emotions, and if so that's probably something that you need to say no to delegate it, delete it completely. Just say this is not something that I want to do in my business any longer. A lot of people got rid of housesitting for this very reason of I don't like being away from my pets. I don't like being away from my own bed. And so I'm just not going to do this anymore. So that's not something that my company offers. And that's perfectly fine. It's on your not to do list. We no longer offer housesitting period? Well, I
Collin 12:53
think many of us have had this experience of you take on a client and you get into that all sudden, you go, Oh my gosh, the eye, this was a mistake, I should never have said yes to this client or this person, or I shouldn't have never gotten myself into this situation. And so understanding and taking that moment to go, how did I get here? What can I do in the future to change and making sure that that goes, I will never say yes to that kind of thing again,
Meghan 13:21
well, and maybe your intentions were completely good and completely pure. And you weren't feeling any kind of guilt about saying yes to this in the first place. But you just got into it, and you were either in over your head or you just didn't enjoy it. And so you need to put it on the opposite list. Now,
Collin 13:37
I think for me, asking yourself is what I'm doing a waste? am I wasting my time and I wasting my energy? am I wasting my resources? am I wasting my money doing this task? If so, if you can label it as this is a waste, this is not important or useful to me and my company, my business or my clients. That to me is a bright red flag that this is something that needs to be stopped being done. And being done immediately, it needs to call that never do list. And I think
Meghan 14:09
for us, we haven't had a super big success in events before. So being a vendor at an event and they haven't gotten us a whole lot of clients have gotten us a great networking with other businesses in the area. But you know, as far as events, we're not super interested in being that bright, expensive, big sponsor anymore simply because we kind of know what to expect now at the events in our local communities. And so that's just something that we now know going forward. And so we're probably going to put that on our not to do list
Collin 14:45
that we at first were interested in, oh, we can be a vendor at this list. We can go go to this event. And we quickly realized that that doesn't fit us. That's not what we need to be doing and spending our time doing. We can invest that in much better resources in our avenues that are going to see a higher payoff much quicker.
Meghan 15:02
And then once you have your list or your not to do list, then ultimately saying no to those things seems pretty simple. But saying no to yourself, really, that's not something that we talk about very often. But it is important, you know, we say yes to ourselves of saying yes to self care and saying yes to, you know, meditation or prayer or going off in reading or hiking in the woods, or whatever it is that you'd like to do, we say yes to ourselves. But then also, we need to say no to ourselves, because we need to have those boundaries, we need to have that self discipline, and that self control, not only in our personal lives, but our business as well, because we are our we run and operate our businesses. And it's very hard to separate our personal from our business lives. And so there are things that we need to say no to including ourselves. And that can be really hard. But it is very important. Because we know ourselves best. We know our limitations. We know our proclivities to do certain things or not do certain things. And so, really, again, having that self discipline to say no, I will not do this thing I, you know, maybe I want to but it isn't ultimately not the best thing for me, like, I really want to eat the entire package of candy. But is that the best thing for me? No, I really want to say yes to this client, again, because they tip every single time, but they are also three miles outside of my service radius. So I need to not do that I need to say no to giving into that. And you need to say no to myself, a not to do list is also a more of a conscious thing than a to do list because rather than procrastinating which can be very easily done with a to do list, I'll just put that off for tomorrow. You can't really do that with a not to do list because that's more, it's more here and now immediate. That event I is on my not to do list, that client is on my not to do list, they checking my phone after a certain time not to do list,
Collin 17:08
it's definitely a much more immediate because it's focused on me and myself. It's what I will not do. It's the actions, the behaviors, the things I will no longer do in my business and my life. And so yeah, it's not something that we can just put off. It is a very active presence, real conscious effort that we have in our lives, it helps us get a little bit more control and presence and focus in our lives. We've said that word a couple times. But it really does help as a reminder of that big waving red flag with big flashing warning lights. You wrote it down, you told people about it. This is on a list. These are something that you said you promised you would not do. And here it is as a reminder to us because again, we're trying to change trying to move forward and trying to new do new and better things.
Meghan 18:00
Yeah, it's very purposeful. We have a purpose, we have a goal. Just like with your to do list, you have a purpose and a goal with your not to do list as well. And that's very important to keep in mind. If you have a to do list or a not to do list, you can let us know you can send us an email at feedback at petsitter confessional.com.
Collin 18:18
We'd love to hear how you define what goes on and not to do this to the questions that you use to define this. Have you even heard of a not to do list? And is it something that you implement? That's definitely something that we would like to to know about and see if it's useful to other people.
Meghan 18:33
So you can send us an email at feedback at petsitter confessional.com. We want
Collin 18:37
to thank our sponsor today pet sitters associates and our wonderful Patreon members for supporting the show they found value in it and they are helping to keep the show going and is that something again that you're interested in, you can go to pet cert professional.com/support
Meghan 18:52
Or you can simply share this episode or any of the other 329 episodes with a pet sitter or dog walker friend. We greatly appreciate you listening today and we will talk to you next time. Bye
