The avoid-at-all-cost list

♟ How I stopped playing online chess

Ever feeling that you’re trying to do too many things at the same time?

I’ve been feeling like that for most of my adult life. There are just too many exciting things to do in this world 🥲.

But whenever I try to do a little bit of everything, I end up feeling frustrated and scattered, like the protagonist of Kerouac’s “On the road”:

I like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another till I drop.

"The avoid-at-all-cost list" is a brilliant reflection exercise that’s meant to help with this.

Step 1: Assume infinite time

It goes like this: I take a piece of paper and I write a long list of all the things I'd like to do.

I focus on bigger goals that take more than one week to achieve. Otherwise, I don't self-censor: I write everything that comes to mind.

I assume that I have infinite time.

Step 2: Pick top 5

Now that I have the full list, I need to bring it back to the reality in which, well, I don't have infinite time.

I circle 5 items that are most important to me at the moment.

Step 3: Avoid at all cost

Everything I did not circle becomes the “avoid-at-all-cost” list.

These are the things that will be distracting me from what's most important at the moment.

These items are very dangerous precisely because they are appealing. They're not necessarily bad ideas; they're just not the most important ones right now.

Like sirens in the Odyssey, they'll be distracting me from the goals I did circle.

Conclusion

I do this exercise every year since 2022. It's fun to look back at past lists and see how priorities change over time.

If you try it, let me know how it went!

Editorial note

Last year, one of my top 5 goals was to keep publishing a weekly newsletter for another year. It was a great challenge and I learned a lot from it :). Some of the posts got traction in various corners of the Internet and I got a lot of heart-warming feedback. Thank you for being part of it 🫶.

This time, the weekly newsletter didn't make the shortlist 🥲. Not because I don't like it, but because there are 5 other items that draw me even more.

I will use this opportunity to write less often, and focus on the topics that seem to resonate the most with my audience. Hopefully this will make for better posts! :)

References

The exercise is often attributed to Warren Buffet, but as far as I can tell the authorship isn’t clear.

Postcard from Paris

The iron lady in the morning sun 💫.

Do what's most important to you,
– Przemek