I love checklists.
How easy is it to follow through when you don’t have to use any mental overhead to remember?
That’s why I love checklists. They eliminate “mental overhead” (energy spent maintaining your head space) by giving you a place to hold information in a static way.
This is important because our brain isn’t a computer, and things slip through the cracks. The list we hold in our head is dynamic because we are. Writing them down keeps them static. (Things being static isn’t always a bad thing…)
Knowing that, have you thought about having a list that you say “no” to?
The concept exists, and it’s called a “not-to-do list.”
The idea is simple: write down the things you don’t do. Keep it around to remind you to save yourself from the “mental overhead.” This way, you will hold yourself accountable to this way of doing things so it becomes native to you.
From the desk of Adam Thomas 