This blog post is about a book titled “The Not To-Do List” written by Rolf Dobelli

As one can guess from the title of the book, the author gives a set of behaviors, when followed will guarantee failure. The inspiration behind this format came from Charlie Munger’s talk titled “How to Guarantee a life of misery”

My Not To-Do List

Is it difficult to write a set of Not To-Do List ? I put a timer for 30 min and came up with the following list:

1. Always Slack off whenever you get a chance
2. If it is a team work, try to do only whatever is needed. Bare minimum
3. When life gives you two choices, one a difficult route where you will learn something about you and the other an easy route where the path might be boring and not challenging enough, always take the easy path even if the end result is many notches below the difficult route
4. Entertain thoughts that keeps you going in incessant circle of why did that happen- i should have done this - i shouldn’t have done that - did it really happen etc
5. Be envious of others. Be envious of their wealth, their knowledge, their physical appearance
6. Always ensure that you look beautiful from the outside even though you are miserable inside.
7. Never let your emotions out. Always be stone faced
8. Do not show any gratitude towards anyone as they will never show the same in return
9. Do not indulge in any daily rituals that will keep your skills sharp
10. Do not try to encourage any right brain activity such as pursuing art or any form of activity that is good for your right brain. Always try sharpening your left brain
11. It is ok to cheat on your partner once in a while
12. It is ok to scold kids so that they are disciplined
13. It is ok to hit your kids from time to time so that they are disciplined
14. Always prioritize work over family
15. Do not save for a rainy day. You get to live once and hence make the most of immediate moment by splurging away to glory
16. Always play politics in the organization to get ahead
17. Do not ever praise your colleagues
18. Criticise your colleagues in public
19. Always just learn enough so that you can talk about it. Surface knowledge on a subject is what you must aim for
20. If you are stuck in a traffic or difficult situation, try to yell and try to show restlessness
21. Do not ever calm your mind as your mind is meant to be active forever so that you can achieve something
22. Work towards one single purpose in life even though it entails sacrificing your life and not looking at life in entirety
23. Do not give too much importance to your exercise routine. If you have a chance to skip a few days, do it happily
24. Try maintaining an extreme lifestyle for life is always lived on an edge
25. Try to binge as many violent web series, documentaries as the drama that contains in all those series makes you edgy
26. Do not attempt writing on a daily basis. It is a waste of time
27. Anger is a good thing. Always show anger at situations, people so that you can get things done
28. Always be restless as that is the only way to get things done
29. Do not practice any of your skillsets on a regular basis
30. Always multi-task and you can always get more things done
31. Do not respect others and Do not even attempt to think from other person’s perspective
32. There is no point in investing and saving for life is too short to hoard for retirement
33. Be an email junkie. Respond to all the emails as soon as they hit your inbox
34. Do not get adequate sleep in a day
35. Do not ever think of meditation. It is a waste of time
36. Never be playful. Keep a serious disposition at everything you do
37. Try not be systematic in anything you do
38. Always pre-judge people and do not ever think of understanding their point of view
39. Look at the world based on your own assumptions
40. Read a lot of media news that are sensational, binge worthy or outright nasty
41. Never attempt to draw in life as it is not a skill worth developing
42. Always depend on ONE tool for everything. There is no point in spending time to increase your tools in your toolbox
43. Always seek safety and never risk anything in life
44. Endurance is a myth. There is nothing like developing endurance for doing something in life
45. Once life hits you hard, never try to learn any lessons from it. Move on to something else
46. Never celebrate small wins in life
47. Always trust your brain and listen to whatever it says
48. Never ever question assumptions or belief systems passed on to you by others
49. Keep your house, desk or anything for that matter messy for messiness is the pre-condition to creativity
50. Do not read any books for there is nothing to be learned from others
51. Always believe in one kind of learning. There is no point in blending audio, video, blogs, papers in to your learning. Just read one book on any subject and move on
52. Deliberate practice is overrated
53. Given a choice between incessant chatter in your head and deliberate attention, always choose the former
54. When trading, always go for the extremes. Do not focus on stop losses
55. When you are presenting a topic, do not spend too much time. Manage to put everything in words
56. Do not ever teach what you already know. Your knowledge is meant to be hoarded
57. Never seek solitude ever in your life
58. Never seek silence or act of silence ever in your life
59. Always spend a LOT of time doing ONE task and Do not ever break up the task in to small manageable pieces so you can have mini victories on the way. They are pointless
60. Be resentful towards all the people who have behaved badly towards you
61. Always look at the negative side of any event so that you can improve on it. The fact that it is negative itself could be a flawed assumption
62. Do not ever have a smiling attire for the world might think you are frivolous
63. Reflection of any sort is a waste of time. Pursue action always
64. If there is a chance to cut corners, do so
65. Never part your money to any good cause
66. Always be possessive of your family, wealth, education and any of the other things that you identify with
67. You should never stop thinking even if it makes us listen to endless chatter
68. Avoid any breaks in your work. Do not go for any brief walks between your work
69. Avoid any activities that puts you nearer to mother nature. There is no point in wasting time
70. You should always try to compare what you do not have with others who have it

From the book: Not To-Do List

1. Let Things Fall Apart
2. Feed Your Weaker Self
3. Be Unreliable
4. Be an Asshole
5. Have High Expectations
6. Drift Through the Day
7. Mess Up Your Marriage
8. Be a Quitter
9. Be Hypocritical
10. Cling to Your Bad Habits
11. Set the Wrong Goals
12. Drink Yourself Miserable
13. Get Involved in Other People’s Drama
14. Only Learn from Your Own Experience
15. Be Hyperactive on Social Media
16. Indulge in Road Rage
17. Surround Yourself with Negative People
18. Micromanage Your Neighbours
19. Say Yes to Drugs
20. Get Stuck in Your Career
21. Never Be Playful
22. Feel Guilty
23. Practise Ingratitude
24. Trust Your Banker
25. Be Paranoid
26. Make Other People Feel Unimportant
27. Live in the Past
28. Listen to Your Inner Voice
29. Expect Rationality
30. Get Nihilistic
31. Catastrophize
32. Consider Money Unimportant
33. Cultivate a Victim Mentality
34. Become a Lapdog
35. Get Rich Quick, Get Smart Quick
36. Ruminate
37. Trade Your Reputation for Money
38. Never Suffer
39. Let Your Emotions Define You
40. Try to End It All
41. Marry the Wrong Person – and Stay with Them
42. Celebrate Your Resentment
43. Join a Cult
44. Try to Change People
45. Say Everything You Think
46. Spin Multiple Plates
47. Do Only Shallow Work
48. Invite Bad People into Your Life
49. Go Where the Competition is Strong
50. Say Yes to Everything
51. Crowd Your Life with Gadgets
52. Fall into the Content Trap

Takeaway

I think it is very easy to write an not to-do list. The secret lies in reminding ourselves the things we shouldn’t do. I like the format though. When someone puts a negative spin on it and says that it is a guaranteed path to failure, our mind might stop to reconsider indulging in such activities.