Create a Stop Doing List, Add Neighbors to Your To-Do List

 

Innovation or improvement often fails for the wrong reason in a business or even our personal lives.

It is not that the idea is bad. It is just that the idea never had a chance.

Our crazy busy lives are killing our innovation and causing us to be unreceptive to new ideas in our personal lives and our businesses.

How many times have you seen a great idea at work bubble up, and even be met with excitement, only to have it die because no one had time for it after the brainstorming session. When we have packed schedules already, new projects simply die when we try to add them to existing workloads.

That is why I advocate the creation of “stop doing” lists. 

This is not an idea unique to me. I first learned about this idea in the book “Crazy Busy,” by Kevin Deyoung, but has since seen others reference it as well.

Most of our work schedules do not have free time – especially if we have been at that place of work very long. Adding new activities without eliminating other tasks is a good way to sabotage innovation. It is also intellectually dishonest.

Repeatedly, new ideas lose out to the demands of the day or the urgency of now.

That is why we need to begin our innovation process by discussing a ‘stop doing’ list before adding things to a ‘start doing’ list. We have to create the capacity or time for innovation first.

What are the barriers to productivity in your place of business? Each of those barriers is an opportunity to be more productive, to ask if the task is still important.

The ‘stop doing’ list should include its best friend and neighbor, the ‘do differently’ list. Together they offer a path toward creating capacity. It takes more than just trimming a few minutes here and there during your day.

Talking with family members or co-workers about tasks that take a lot of time but have very few impacts or are no longer productive or valuable, only traditional, might be a good place to start.

The whole idea is to have these stop-doing conservations so leaders can say no to some activities and say yes to others that could be more productive or impactful.

There is a method to leading a “stop doing” process that can be applied to work groups, organizations of all types, and even with our own families. The key is to identify some changes that free up capacity while realizing there may be some temporary disruption in work.

To begin the process, there are some key questions to ask.

What activities take up the most time in your day and are they essential to the core mission? For the least essential, find alternatives.

What tasks are the most repetitive and least creative or demanding? Is there something that would be a better use of your time if optional?

Are there aspects of the workflow that could be automated?

What is the highest-value, most productive use of your time in your role? What gets in the way of doing that activity more?

We all have the same 24-hours. There isn’t more time in a day. But we can change how we spend the time we have. Starting with a ‘stop doing’ list faces the reality that there is no more time and it also sets you up for success when you pursue innovative ideas.

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Does this article make you interested in taking the Engaged Neighbor pledge? Five categories and 20 principles to guide you toward becoming an engaged neighbor. Sign the pledge online at http://engagedneighbor.com.

Contact the blog author, David L. Burton at dburton541@yahoo.com.

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