The not-to-do list.

Put a second list next to it. The things you will not do.

My former colleague Jordi van de Bovenkamp always called it the “Toedeledokie” list.

Not the things you will get to later. Not the things at the bottom of the backlog. The things you have decided to leave out.

What does it do?

A not-to-do list makes the other half of a choice visible. If this matters, what will you stop doing to make room for it?

You can use it for yourself when you have too much going on. Or with a team that keeps adding work without taking anything away.

For yourself, it might be about habits. Checking email every fifteen minutes. Multitasking during important work. Saying yes when you mean no. Colby Kultgen’s version starts here: list five to ten things that distract you most, then deliberately avoid them.

For a team, it can be about the work itself. Which projects will you leave alone? Which requests will you decline? Which improvements are useful, but outside what you have chosen to focus on?

For example: “Improve the customer experience” leaves almost everything open. “Fix onboarding this quarter. Do not redesign the website” gives a team a clearer choice to work with.

The second list does not turn a plan into a strategy. But it makes it harder to pretend you have made choices while keeping everything in.

How do you try it?

You need two lists and a clear scope. Your week. A project. The team’s next quarter.

1. Write down what you intend to do. If you need an overview first, use Nine things on your mind: a three-by-three grid to get what is in your head onto one page.
2. Make that list selective. What matters enough to get your attention now?
3. Next to it, write what you will not do within the same scope. Name the work or behaviour. “Check email twice a day” is more useful than “Be less distracted”.
4. If you are doing this with a team, check what each exclusion means. Is it something you are stopping, declining or postponing until a specific date? Do not let “not now” quietly mean “also do this”.
5. Keep both lists visible. When a new request comes in, check it against both. If you change a choice, change the lists too.

What if the second list is hard?

I see a use for this. I also see why people can find it difficult. Sometimes it is easier to decide what you will do than what you will not do.

Start there. Make the first list more selective. Must-win battles is one way to do that with a team: pick the few battles that must be won now, and let the rest wait.

Then ask what those choices leave out.

The point is not to finish everything. There will be more work. The point is to make room for what you have chosen.