The Not To Do List
The Surprisingly Simple Art of Success
By Rolf Dobelli
Category: Motivation & Inspiration | Reading Duration: 21 min | Rating: 4.5/5 (192 ratings)
About the Book
The Not To Do List (2025) flips productivity advice on its head. Rather than dishing out specific advice for executives or entrepreneurs, it presents a list of things that everyone should avoid – no matter their profession. If you’re ready to clear out mental clutter, reclaim your time, and focus on what really matters, this book will show you the smarter, calmer path forward.
Who Should Read This?
- Overwhelmed professionals
- Productivity enthusiasts
- Students and lifelong learners
What’s in it for me? A practical blueprint for doing less – and living better.
Back in 1986, Charlie Munger, the business partner of Warren Buffett and vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, gave a now-famous commencement speech at Harvard. Entitled “How to Guarantee a Life of Misery,” Munger did the opposite of the usual commencement speech by sharing foolproof ways to fail, rather than ways to succeed. It was pretty clever, because while we don’t always know the secret ingredient of success, we do know the common pitfalls – the behaviors that tend to stand in the way of success, no matter who you are. You can think of this idea as an example of the inversion method, and it’s at the heart of The Not To Do List.
The inversion method shows us that you can learn as much from the wrong turns of others as you can from their victories. The Not To Do List contains 52 different items. We can’t cover them all in this Blink, but we’ll bring together quite a few, and put them into five groups that highlight the main themes of career advice, personal advice, and how to do good work by keeping your eye on what’s important. Let’s dig in. If there’s one overarching piece of advice for living a successful life, it’s this: don’t let things fall apart. Sounds obvious, right?
Chapter 1: Keep the infrastructure sound
But that doesn’t mean it’s simple or straightforward. Not letting things fall apart is a process of constant maintenance. It’s not heroic work. No one wins an award for doing the routine maintenance that keeps a building in good shape or prevents a bridge from collapsing when a heavy storm arrives.
And yet, this is the work that matters. Maintenance requires diligence and attention to the small things. There’s an anecdote about a man and his leaky roof. When it’s sunny out, he doesn’t think the leaky roof is important, so he puts it off. And when it’s raining, he thinks the conditions are too bad to do the work. This kind of neglect is exactly how things quietly get worse until they’re falling apart – whether that’s your health, your relationships, or your work.
To live a good life, you need to stay watchful and do what needs to be done, even when it’s difficult or uncomfortable. It might mean calling the doctor when you’re feeling dizzy, having that tough conversation with your partner, or addressing what’s wrong with your business. These things will catch up with you sooner or later – and then it’ll all fall apart. So stop telling yourself that you don’t have the time. Which brings us to the next item on the not-to-do list: don’t drift from one thing to the next, hoping productivity will happen on its own. Successful people plan their days with intention, blocking out time for their most important work while their minds are fresh.
Structure your days mindfully and show up for yourself. Respect the limited amount of time you have to do the things that matter. Quick advice on structuring your days: estimate how much time each task truly needs, but don’t be a perfectionist. Plans will go awry. So just leave room in tomorrow’s schedule for overflow. Keep it simple.
The point is to prioritize the most important tasks and to make sure the hours of the day don’t slip through your fingers. Meanwhile, don’t say yes to every request. “No” is a small word, but it’s your greatest weapon for protecting your time and energy. You’re not obliged to jump at every demand that comes your way. There’s no resource more precious than your time. Guarding it is a sign of respect for yourself and your goals.
People will understand. Speaking of goals. Maybe it’s time to double-check those, because if you’re spending all your time on the wrong goals, then that’s just another form of poor time management. If you're chasing external markers like beauty, fame, or wealth, you’re going to end up feeling empty. A good goal comes from asking yourself, What kind of person do I want to become? Work on your character.
Make it your goal to become more disciplined and less envious, angry, and self-pitying. When you start to achieve these kinds of goals, you’ll discover that happiness and peace will follow naturally. In the next section, we’ll look at some of the personal goals that are worth your time. None of us is perfect.
Chapter 2: Build your muscles for motivation and resilience
We all have our flaws on the one hand and our strengths on the other. But that doesn’t mean we should give in and feed that weaker part of ourselves. This requires that diligence we were talking about in the previous section. A lot of our basic needs are being easily met these days, which means we have to fight the primal urge to sit back and relax.
Unlike our ancestors, most of us have pretty well-stocked fridges and pantries. We don’t have to spend our days hunting or building shelter. Instead, we have to spend our days staying motivated for other, more lofty goals. Self-motivation is like a muscle. It’s hard to train, but every time you push against that lazy impulse, you’re building your willpower for the long run. Just like any other form of exercise, building up your self-motivation muscle requires effort – but it’s absolutely necessary, because if you don’t, it’s a slippery slope toward falling apart.
This feeds right into the next item on your not-to-do list: don’t be a quitter. Just as humans aren’t perfect, it’s to be expected that life is going to hand you setbacks. For anyone who’s ever tried something new, grit is essential to success. You have to learn to embrace the bumpy road of trial and error. Thomas Edison didn’t find the lightbulb on the first try. It took over a thousand attempts!
So if you’ve got some ambitious plans, don’t fool yourself into thinking the finish line is three months away. Think ten years. And think about the ancient wisdom of the Stoics, who didn’t shy away from the suffering that happens in life. Successful people know a thing or two about suffering. When Jensen Huang, the CEO of NVIDIA, gave a commencement address to Stanford graduates, he wished them all some pain and suffering so that they might build character and resilience. Huang, a Taiwanese immigrant, knows how reaching deep and overcoming seemingly insurmountable challenges can forge us into truly successful overachievers.
Here’s what the Stoics would also say: don’t let your inner voice have the final word, and don’t let your emotions define you. Admit it, your inner voice is a drama queen. It’s constantly nagging you about worst-case scenarios. Of course, you can’t shut it off completely, but you can stop letting it run your life. Write down the useful stuff it tells you – ditch the rest. Focus on what’s actually in front of you.
Let reason and reality be your guide, not worries and what-ifs. Emotions are like weather – they’re like clouds that pass by. They’re not your identity. The Stoic approach is to reason with your feelings, calm yourself, and move forward without letting them dictate your actions. In the next section, we’ll get a bit more specific about the emotional roadblocks you can encounter, and which ones can really throw you off course. Before we move on from the self-work that should be part of everyone’s path to success, let’s spend a little more time on emotions, and the different kinds of negativity that we can get bogged down in – the kind of harmful thinking and obsessing that can really cause things to fall apart.
Chapter 3: Give wide berth to life’s many downers
We can probably all agree that a successful life is one that is moving forward, as opposed to being stagnant and broken down. Well, one of the main reasons we can end up unable to move forward is if we’re stuck in the past with feelings of guilt, resentment, or victimization. Which is why over-indulging in any of these feelings should be included on your not-to-do list. Despite what everyone’s social media feed might suggest, life is messy.
We all make mistakes along the way, and the truth is that some of these messes never get fully cleaned up. The more we come to terms with that, the better. Everyone carries their scars and disappointments with them. We screw things up. We let someone down. We fail.
But we can’t get stuck in a holding pattern waiting around for closure. That’s like waiting for rain in a drought – actually, it’s worse because, unlike rain, there’s never any guarantee that closure will ever arrive in your lifetime. We like to think that forgiveness or answers are just around the corner and that everything will get tied up nice and neat – but that’s often a fantasy. As the novelist Ian McEwan put it, “In movies and novels you get closure sometimes, but in life it rarely happens, if at all. ” Accept the mess and move on. We can waste so much time and energy on regret, nostalgia, and self-pity.
The Stoics figured this out long ago: you can’t change the past, so why wrestle with it? The healthier, freer path is to accept what’s done and pour your energy into what you can actually control. This pertains to the flip side of the regret equation, as well. If you want a recipe for a miserable life, then go ahead and indulge your grudges, let them simmer, sprinkle in daily bitterness, and bake until you’re completely burnt out. Nothing will drain your spirit faster than hanging onto resentment. Look, we can’t all be as magnanimous as Nelson Mandela, but still – here’s a guy who spent 27 years in prison, and walked out with no bitterness.
He was ready to lead, not seek revenge. If he could do that, maybe we can let go of our gripes and grudges. One helpful method is to give your grievances an expiry date. Write them down, burn the paper, let them drift away with the smoke. But when you’re setting the flame, take a moment to remember to own your part in the mess, too.
Chapter 4: Keep better company
Maybe you’ve heard the expression, “It’s hard to soar with the eagles when you’re surrounded by turkeys. ” It’s a fair enough point, but it’s not an excuse. Yes, who you spend time with shapes who you become. But guess what?
Who you spend time with is also up to you. If you hang around negative people all the time, their gloom will start to cling to you like so much unappealing cigarette smoke. It’s called emotional contagion, and it creeps in quietly. Before you know it, their complaints and bad moods have become part of your default setting. So put it on your not-to-do list. Negative people, toxic people – as Charlie Munger would say – give these people a wide berth.
They’ll drag you down. While you’re at it, steer clear of manipulators, narcissists, drama-seekers, people who play the victim, and folks with bad reputations. Life’s too short, and you’re not trapped on a submarine with these people – you get to choose who’s in your corner. Choose wisely, and look for people who are smarter, kinder, and more dynamic than you are. Surround yourself with positive, curious, growth-oriented people, because their energy is contagious too. They’ll lift you up.
They’ll boost your mood and your creativity. Some people fail to heed the wide berth advice because they think they can change people. But change comes from within. With time and effort, you can change yourself, but trying to mold someone else’s personality? That’s another one to jot down on your not-to-do list. And while you’re at it, you can also add “getting involved in other people’s drama.
” Seriously, it’s like a vortex. Once you’re in, you lose your objectivity and your peace. Set boundaries, let people handle their own mess, and keep your personal life private too – everything will be much simpler. When it comes to relationships and succeeding with other people, here are four tips. First, don’t expect people to be rational. Humans aren’t wired that way.
We like to think we are, but we’re driven by emotions, biases, and gut reactions. You’ll save yourself a lot of frustration if you stop expecting pure logic from everyone around you, yourself included. Second, don’t say everything you think. Listening is underrated. You already know your own opinions, so let others talk. And don’t go around thinking honesty is always a virtue.
Relationships – even with close friends – are fragile, and tact will take you much further than so-called radical honesty. Which leads us to the third piece of advice: don’t be an asshole. Everything you’ve achieved is because others helped you, directly or indirectly. Showing gratitude, modesty, and kindness isn’t just polite – it’s the smart way to live. A smaller ego will make your life bigger. Lastly, don’t make people feel unimportant.
Practice empathic listening. Put your phone away, stop rehearsing your next line while they’re talking, and really hear them. It builds trust, surfaces real motivations, and helps you solve problems better together. Protect your peace, listen more, and build your circle with intention. That’s successful living.
Chapter 5: Ditch the mediocre and go deep
Alright, let’s wrap things up with a look at some advice on productivity. Generally speaking, the goal for any day’s work should be deep, concentrated, in-the-zone work. Ditch shallow work. Delegate it whenever possible.
Shallow work doesn’t move your life forward. Deep work will. It helps you perform better, builds your circle of competence, and makes life more fun because you’re immersed. Here’s a simple rule of thumb: if a bright grad could learn the task in a matter of days, it’s shallow – clear it off your plate. So, how do you set yourself up for doing deep work? Start by eliminating distractions.
That includes disabling the notifications on your phone. Yes, it’s okay to ignore calls while you work. And stop trying to spin multiple plates. Maybe you believe that multitasking is one of your superpowers, but if you want to create something that actually matters, you need full, undivided focus. Save your multitasking skills for other tasks, like brushing your teeth while listening to a podcast. Deep, meaningful work, whether it's writing, reading, building, or problem solving, requires undivided attention.
Even tiny distractions create “attention residue” that kills your focus. You think you’re just checking the news for a minute, but it actually takes ten minutes to get your brain fully back on track. The best solution? It’s just like your grandma told you when you were a kid: one thing at a time. Speaking of distractions, a big item on your not-to-do list should be social media. The list of reasons why is long.
Remember those negative emotions that we were trying to control? Well, social media is the perfect envy machine, breeding dissatisfaction as you compare your life to everyone else’s unrealistic highlight reel. It also drains your focus, kills productivity, and cuts you off from real, meaningful experiences. Worst of all, it cheapens your presence with people around you when you’re glued to your phone mid-conversation. Try going social-media-free. You’ll find both a renewed sense of mental clarity and a shocking amount of time being freed up.
Social media is just another form of content. But content isn’t just content. Content is today’s mainstream drug of choice. To engage in deep work without being distracted, you need a disciplined, strategic plan about how you engage with content, or else you’re going to drown. The aim here is to move away from thinking, Oh, that’s interesting, I’ll watch that video, read that article, or listen to that podcast. “Interesting” is a trap.
Everything can be considered interesting with enough mental gymnastics. To avoid the content trap, you need to shift from “interesting” to “relevant. ” Here’s how: First, define your circle of competence. What is it, specifically, that you want to master? Second, consume content that’s only relevant to that expertise you’re after. And before you do, ask yourself what you want to learn from it.
Take notes, write summaries, and actively engage so the insights actually stick. And third, don’t consume more than you produce. How much deep work are you putting in today? Keep track of your hours and don’t exceed that time engaging with other people’s work.
To live well and succeed at whatever your goals may be, stop filling your days with clutter, distractions, and shallow work. Focus on creating, on deep work, and on experiences that enrich your mind and spirit. Your future self will thank you. The main takeaway of this Blink to The Not To Do List by Rolf Dobelli is that you can learn a lot about success by focusing on what to avoid rather than what to chase, because while it’s hard to define exactly what creates happiness or success, it’s crystal clear what destroys them.
Final summary
There are many things on the list, but it starts with making sure things don’t fall apart by practicing diligent maintenance on fundamental issues like planning your day, showing up, and not letting yourself get bogged down by regrets and grudges. A better approach is a more stoic one based on resilience and not letting failures and the events of the past take you off course. The list also includes staying away from social media and multitasking and not letting the distractions of our content-obsessed culture lead you into doing shallow work. It requires persistent effort, but a successful life is based on deep work, which means doing less but with greater intensity.
This is the path toward a richer, calmer, and more meaningful life. Okay, that’s it for this Blink. We hope you enjoyed it. If you can, please take the time to leave us a rating – we always appreciate your feedback. See you in the next Blink.
About the Author
Rolf Dobelli is a Swiss author and thinker known for his clear, practical insights on decision-making and living wisely. With a background in business and philosophy, he has a gift for turning complex ideas into crisp, engaging advice. His books, including The Art of Thinking Clearly and The Not To Do List, have helped people worldwide manage their lives with less noise and more clarity.