The to-don’t list

Recently, two people mentioned to me that they’re struggling with the weight of the undone items on their to-do lists. Both were feeling like they should be more productive.

Same, honestly. I always have more ideas in me than will comfortably fit, and I generally want to do all of them all at the same time. My partner once described me as “resting by only doing two things at once.”

Yes, I know, I have ADHD and this is… pretty standard ADHD stuff. But I also live in a society that generally frames productivity as a virtue and rest as a means to recharge so you can carry on being productive.

I strongly disagree with these frames, to the extent I have developed what I can only describe as an elevator anti-pitch for productivity culture:

Productivity isn’t a virtue. It’s just capitalism’s way of squeezing more out of us than we have to give.

Believing that productivity culture is a scam is one thing. Convincing myself not to fall for the scam is quite another.

And as I was talking to the other people struggling with their to-do lists, an idea for an experiment came to me: a to-don’t list.

I sat down on Monday with a plan to think of two or three things I would not do this week. Specifically, things that I feel like I should do but don’t have time for right now.

It was really hard. I kept thinking of things I could put on the list and then going, “Oh no, I should do that!”

That “Oh no, I should do that!” feeling is precisely why I wanted to write a to-don’t list.

It took me a while, but I eventually came up with two items:

• Don’t try to start a discussion and mutual support group for stressed-out academics

• Don’t paint the downstairs bathroom

I know my brain responds well to ticking things off a list (woooooo, dopamine!) so I have made myself an actual physical to-don’t list and if I have successfully done nothing towards either of these things by next Sunday, I get to tick them off.