What's In Plain Sight

Do you make a to-do list every day? And are there days when you wonder how you’ll get to it all? Well, here’s a way to clear some space for the things that are worth doing: stop doing the things that aren’t worth doing.

The concept comes from the book Good to Great by Jim Collins, a fabulous book built on the concept that good is the enemy of great and that so few people and companies achieve greatness because we’re satisfied with goodness. To quote Collins, “Few people attain great lives, in large part because it is just so easy to settle for a good life.”

This book was the first time I’d ever heard of the stop-doing list, and I love the principle. Sometimes the very things that are keeping us from becoming what we want to become—maybe even what we were meant to become—are seemingly small things.


Try it out. Write down the things you want to eliminate from your life. Maybe you’ve been meaning to stop eating after 7 p.m., or to stop complaining and start being grateful. Stop staying up so late. Stop yelling at your kids. It could be anything.

The very things in life we hang on to the hardest are sometimes the things that keep us from getting what we want. What are you willing to let go of? Anger? Debt? Guilt? That ugly green sweater in your closet? Come on. Let go, and bring in the great.

- Bryan Thayer