Stop Doing Crap

I am trying to stop doing things I don’t like to do. Wait Captain Obvious – don’t all people do this? No. We get sucked into other people’s expectations and our own expectations of ourselves. We end up voluntarily spending lots of time doing things we just don’t want to do.

Live Sports – I Don’t Like Them

I’ve been to a bunch of Red Sox games. When I moved into Boston a few years ago I was that guy who sat in front of my laptop on the one day that tickets were available bought as many as I could. I tried to keep up with how the Sox were doing. Why? I played baseball as a kid and told myself a story about how I was a baseball fan. But whenever it came time to head to a game – different story. I was often not happy that it took up a weekend, or even an evening. I had trouble with people bailing on me and had to scramble last minute to find people to go to games with – it was stressful. When I was in Fenway Park – it was OK – but I didn’t always have a fabulous time. I finally realized that it was time to re-write my expectations of myself.

New Rule to Live By: I don’t like watching sports. If there is a compelling social reason – go ahead and watch (deepen friendships, make a new important business contact) – otherwise do something else.

You Don’t Like Doing All That Stuff?

Once I realized this about sports I started looking for other activities that I routinely engaged in but didn’t actually enjoy and didn’t add any value doing. Turns out there were a bunch. Here are a few – along with what I believe were the expectations traps for why I was doing these activities.

Attending Conferences/Entrepreneurial Events

- Expectation Trap: Make new contacts, keep fresh on your industry, be seen as an influencer.
- The Reality: I f*ing hate most events. I just don’t like being in a room full of people I don’t know and needing to make conversation. But were there results? Nope. I’ve got more business contacts than I can keep up with already – so meeting 50 new ones doesn’t much help (and may actually hurt). And showing up to lot’s of conferences just makes it look like you’ve got nothing better to do with your time – poor signaling.
- New Rule: Attend conferences/events for two reasons: Opportunity to really influence people who matter OR personal love of the topic.

Live Music

- Expectation Trap: Seeing a band live is a great experience, one that cool people engage in regularly.
- The Reality: It’s loud, anti-social, sweaty, and I prefer to listen to music in the comfort of my own environment much better. I think bands sound worse live.
- New Rule: Avoid live music. Only attend for social reasons.

Maintaining Stuff

Expectation Trap: It’s awesome to have 3 houses, 4 cars, and a merry-go-round. Stuff==happiness.

The Reality: Some people take pleasure in maintaining a garden, staining a dresser, or fixing an engine. More power to them. I would rather blow my brains out than engage in any of these activities. I hate housework and stuff maintenance more than almost anyone I know.

New Rule: Try not to own stuff that requires maintenance.

Maybe I should go minimalist. Except for outdoor gear. I love my outdoor gear

It has served me extremely well to know as much about what I hate as what I love. It’s leading to better decisions. Should I go in with a friend on a fixer-upper sailboat? Nope – I hate maintaining things. Which conferences should I go to in the fall? Only the one’s where I can speak and influence huge numbers of important people.

Create and Maintain A List

Random idea. Could this list of love/hate be created and maintained – and even tracked?

Love List:

Creating and deepening meaningful relationships
Spending time in nature
Taxing myself physically
Overcoming exciting business challenges
Helping others succeed in business, mentoring

Hate List:

Maintaining stuff
Live sports, live concerts
Situations where I meet lots of new people at a superficial level
Feeling low-energy

Perhaps a well-created list that was reviewed once a week or once a month could fit into a life management system. Fascinating… it’s a nice way of creating a feedback loop. I’m not committed to trying it yet – but let me know if you make the dive!

http://armilegge.com Armistead Legge

I've been confronting this very problem a lot recently. It takes a lot of honest self evaluation and scrutiny. I'm a triathlete, but I don't really like swimming that much. I thought if I worked my ass off and swam 12,000 meters a week for a year that it would take-no such luck. This doesn't mean I'm going to stop swimming, but I'm becoming smarter about it. Shortening the time and improving quality, etc. I still love cycling and running enough that I can manage the swim-as long as I can keep racing.

Something else I have to be honest with myself about it is iphones. I keep thinking I might want one, but I hate texting. HATE IT. It's like a language created for people who don't know how to form complete sentences or thoughts. There are plenty of other things it can do-but I'm still holding off and going a little more minimalist.

I completely relate with the meeting others at a superficial level thing. That's pretty much the definition of a teenager's life nowadays. I really do hate going to parties. They're boring and always end up with people trying to find something to do. I've never had that problem in my entire life-ever.

I also don't like going to movies. They're boring and I can't get up to do something without missing something. I also just don't watch T.V. anymore- too busy having fun.

I do love my work. Everyone says you have to have fun and take a break. What do they think I'm doing. Don't people understand that working hard is fun to some people? Of course I have outlets like sports, cooking, biohacking, etc, but I love to work.

This was an awesome post Ben. I think we all need to be honest with ourselves and confront our likes and dislikes. Life's too short to spend time on crap we don't like.

Cheers:)

-armi
http://twitter.com/dr_pete Dr. Peter J. Meyers

What's really funny is how we all seem to also be obsessed with forcing our likes on everyone else. I mean, sure, you try to persuade your best friend, SO, etc., because you want them to do things with you. Why do we do it with strangers, though? How can I tell you what you like?

Personally, I love live sports, even though they bore me to tears on TV. A Cubs game on a spring day at Wrigley – awesome. The only thing you'd probably hate worse than a Red Sox game is a Cubs game (or maybe Yankees). So what? Why can't I like what I like and you like what you like? We all seem so intent on being right that even our random opinions have to be shared by others. It's kind of pathetic, really.

So, let's all love what we love, hate what we hate, and (most of the time) shut up about it.

I'm ranting at the world in general, BTW – I agree with you
bsrubin

It's a hugely important point that you have here – find out what you love and hate – but let others make their own decisions. I fall into the trap of trying to convince people that my way is better and that they should change all too often.
http://matttrent.com Matthew Trentacoste

I've been thinking a bunch about Stop Doing lists in general.

I think anyone sufficiently motivated / interested in stuff would benefit a lot more from a list that reminds them what they should never work on because it's not meaningful / enjoyable / important. At the moment, I have 1 thing I should really be doing: writing my thesis. Beyond basic care, most other stuff is negotiable at the moment. And frankly, I shouldn't even be considering doing other tasks unless I've done all my research work for the day. Even then, it'll probably send me down the rabbit hole and leak over into the next day. But I keep finding myself doing worthless stuff.

I think Stephen Covey's quandrants:

http://sidsavara.com/personal-…

could be applied to a much greater scope of our lives than just tasks and “priorities.” The stuff that always ends up being worthless are the ones that seem important (to Covey because they're urgent and due soon) but really aren't. Laying it out this day really makes it clear to me, and anything that is in the equivalent of Quadrant 3: Urgent, but Not Important should go on a big list that I should never do.