Ask HN: Have you ever written a not-to-do list? How did it work out? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Have you ever written a not-to-do list? How did it work out?

4 pointsmettamage7 comments

When I woke up I said: "today I am NOT watching YouTube, Netflix or read HN." I said this yesterday, it seemed to have worked in helping me to go from not doing much to being quite productive because of the boredom that surrounded me.

Did you do something similar? How did having a not-to-do list work for you in the long term?

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Vasectomy worked great long-term as a not-to-do. No magical children have magically become manifest.

Marriage is on that list too. Also working swimmingly and comes highly recommended.

Your mileage may vary.

It's just something I noticed. Marriage and children did something to people. Especially to men. Whatever it was, it wasn't good. They all seemed to prematurely age and become miserable. I tell myself the good is private, you can't see the good of family life because you are not privy to it. I don't know if I'm wrong. I also tell myself that this is a construct of our society, not of man. That we should want to have children, that this shouldn't be a fundamental part of our lives. Yeah it isn't it, it's a misery. That a child can so completely trap us financially and otherwise is a great sadness. Money being more valuable than life. The high priests of finance determining how much life there can be.

This seems to be the case in many richer countries, typically the ones where birth rates are low. It's ironic that once a nation becomes wealthy enough, children are a luxury.

The part about marriage may be a product of culture. A married couple is meant to be a single unit, not two individuals on the same team, who have to compromise on what direction they're going.

It's quite different in a developing country. My kids were born in private hospitals, go to private school, and I pay health insurance for them. I spend on the high end on kids and the cost is still less than I spend on "office equipment".

I guess back on topic, my not to do list would be moving to places like the US, Japan, or Germany, where raising kids would be unaffordable.

Happy or miserable would be subjective based on how the person takes it. But I can tell you the "prematurely age" part is simply because of the amount of work it takes to raise a child. This is universal, for all children. I don't think anyone who doesn't have children can correctly estimate the amount of work and effort a child takes to raise. That amount of work takes a toll on your body and the aging is the result you can observe of that parent.

I think it works as a kind of discipline or short-term reward mechanism. Like I can say just for this day, I won't read or browse Hacker News and that helps to structure my day/week. But in terms of total abstinence or total boredom, I don't think it works.

It's not like not reading Reddit or Hacker News, will make a person suddenly more efficient. What abstaining can do is that it provide some more structure just like how Pomodoro provides structure.

Like there is a schedule and so mind can focus better a little bit since instead of checking-out Hacker News; the discipline will be there that I can check-out You-Tube or Hacker News after my work hours are done. So there is less constant interruption as well.

At least in my office, we don't allow browsing of video sites during work hours, and it provides some helpful structure which I imagine is similar to just not browsing HN for a period of time.

Terribly, even in the short term. It's the whole "not thinking of a pink elephant" effect. Once your resolve cracks, it shatters harder. You watch a 5 min tutorial on YouTube, then end up binging the whole day on it while you're there.

I have some sort of a long-term to-do list, a list where I state my goals, intended projects, things to learn, etc.

Sometimes I decide that I don't want to do certain things anymore, maybe because I lost interest or something more worthwhile pops up, so I don't delete the entry from my long-term to-do list. Instead I strike it out and write a very short comment behind it. Doing it that way seems to keep my head clear and helps me later to stay focused.

tl;dr: I don't have a not-to-do list but I don't delete thing I decide not to do from my to-do list, instead I cross it out. Keeps my head clear, and helps me to document the reasoning. I would recommend it to others.

That sounds quite useful. Because the comment and striking out also shows the relationship -- to quite a big extent -- how you are changing as a person over time.

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