Jim Collins spoke this past week at the Inc. 500 conference. If he is speaking at any conference you can afford, go see him. His books – Good to Great, Built to Last, and his most recent How the Mighty Fall, are must read books for anyone running or thinking of running a company. His talk mostly revolved around the concepts in How the Mighty Fall, so I won’t rehash that here. One item he talked about really stood out for me as a must-do: creating a stop doing list.

The Stop Doing List

We all have ever growing to-do lists. We add items to them and check them off as they are completed. We even built an app for it – Prioritiz’d. It’s great to know what you need or have to do, but what about all those things we do that we shouldn’t be? No, I’m not talking about posting stupid stuff on Facebook, or finding “not safe for work (nsfw)” images or video while at work. I mean things we do every day that kill our productivity. That’s what a stop doing list is for.

At the top of Jim Collins’ list is to turn off all Internet-enabled stuff in the morning while he’s doing creative work. A great idea, and something I’ve been doing in the mornings as well. It’s very easy to keep checking email, Twitter, etc. The reading I do in the A.M. never sinks in enough when my Internets is up.

So I started one of these stop doing lists.

As an entrepreneurial-type chap I am always thinking of ideas for Atlantic Dominion Solutions, either new ways of doing business, new products, or something else new or different. My problem has always been causing consternation for my wife or Justin by going down the road with these ideas. As Jim said, “Work is infinite, time is finite.” So the first item to go on my stop doing list is, “Going down the road with new ideas without thinking them through or discussing them with others.”

I also like to spend money. This didn’t work well with the first iteration of Atlantic Dominion Solutions, when I was doing IT. To appear big I spent a lot of money on printed materials, hosting, reseller programs, and other things. In iteration 2 (our current) I created nothing print. However, I like the latest and greatest gadgets, software, computers, and other hot stuff. And God knows I like to eat at nice places. Not good in a start-up situation. So the next item on my stop doing list is, “Spending money on things that will not help the bottom line of the business.”

Start Your Stop Doing List

A stop doing list is a great way to stay productive. If you’re using a task management app like Prioritiz’d to keep track of these goodies, then remember to not check off these items until your behavior has truly changed. Also, just create a stop doing list. Making a to-do to create the stop doing is a bit overboard. You know who you are.