The To-Don’t List

Photo by  Fuschia Foot

Since I was old enough to write, I’ve kept a to-do list. It’s a necessary tool in my daily living and I don’t apologize for it. I acknowledge and honor it.I’ve started a different kind of list, a totally “selfish” list that’s designed to keep me from letting my time get sucked up by things I don’t want to do and/or things that leave me feeling resentful of the time that can never be replaced. Or just things that take up WAAAAAAY too much of my time that other people are completely oblivious to. These are the things I’ve had a hard time saying no to in the past but over recent years, I’ve developed a new mindset of “I don’t do _____” that I don’t—and won’t–apologize for, though I will readily explain because the person asking has usually never thought about why I might say no.This is a powerful tool that prevents me from going back to the days of working an extra 40 to 60 hours a week at work for someone else, whether that work is for a charity or a download of guilt or a feeling of “I have to do this.” It’s much easier to have my own established guidelines, and I’m less likely to get trapped into something I really don’t want to do because of pressure from colleagues or relatives. There’s no waffling on my part because I know my limits.

“You want me to sprout wings and fly? Oh, I don’t do that. You want me to make one of my yummy turkey lasagnas and bring it to the office luncheon tomorrow? Oh, I don’t do that, either.”

Here are a few of my to-don’ts and why:- I don’t do fundraising. Never on the selling and very rarely on the buying. I hate it. Have always hated it. Maybe because it feels too much like begging when I’m hawking junk and I’m resentful when I’m asked to buy it. Maybe because I still remember the company VP who was making 10 times my salary (I helped with payroll) but would bring his little kids to my office to guilt us into buying $2 of junk for $25 when most of us were so poorly paid that we couldn’t afford lunch. I have sold my last overpriced candy bars, cookies, calendars, magazines, cheese cakes, gift wrap, candles, whatever. And I’ve bought my last overpriced candy bars, cookies, calendars, magazines, cheese cakes, gift wrap, candles, whatever. If a kid wants to wash my car or pull weeds for the same amount of money, terrific. I want a benefit for what I buy and I want the kids to earn it without expecting a hand-out. (That said, I’ll still direct my own kids to start their fundraising by going to all the people who sent their kids to pester me over the years. Guilt works both ways!)- I don’t read for other people, including judging writing competitions, participating in critique groups, or reviewing a new author’s work to tell her which publisher to send it to. Yes, the writing may be wonderful and I’ve discovered some terrific new authors that way, but the truth is, I am an extremely slow reader. I refuse to consider it a disability, even though it always hurt my scores on standardized tests because I couldn’t finish long passages and answer questions on them within the allotted time. Most people have no idea how painful it is for me to read hundreds of pages, and what someone else can finish in one hour will easily take me three days.

- I don’t volunteer anymore. I used to spend a disproportionate amount of my time doing volunteer work. The reason I stopped was highlighted for me when my building manager asked for volunteers to lock down the building during the month of July. I was pinged a half dozen times and resisted volunteering because when I do, I end up not only with my shift but with others’. As usual, some of the volunteers decided to take the day off without arranging for a replacement and suddenly building managers were coming to me, Old Reliable, to see if I could step in. I am still there in a crunch, but I’m no longer there twice as much as everyone else.

- I don’t speak at public events or give workshops without compensation. The definition of compensation varies, but the days of spending hours to give workshops that I’m suddenly not allowed to sell my books at, well, I don’t do that anymore. And I set the definition of compensation, not someone who thinks I’ll do it for the “publicity” and should be grateful for the forum.

- I don’t cook or bake for office events. The closest I’ll come to it is asking one of the girls to make something, but only because they’re learning to cook. Otherwise, I’ll buy something on my way into work or I’ll contribute napkins, silverware, juice, etc. When the girls were little and I was on the road a lot, I worked in an office where the women were expected to cook for office potlucks and the other half of the office (the men) would throw a couple of dollars in the kitty to pay for one of them to bring in a store-bought desert. One of the old bastards suggested I bake some blueberry muffins because he liked home-cooked breakfasts, to which I said, “If I don’t have time to bake for my little girls, I’m certainly not getting up at 4 AM to make them for you!”

- I don’t go out with a guy just because he asked or because I have “nothing else to do.” This is one I’ve lived by since my marriage ended. One of my colleagues told me that when she was single, she went out at least once with any guy who asked because he’d had the courage to ask. Even if she dreaded the date before she said yes or knew that they had nothing in common or if she hated his guts. It was her policy to reward any man’s mettle. She usually had stories of dreary five-hour dates that she’d hated every minute of and how she wasted her valuable time when she should have been working on her Master’s degree. A writer friend also believed in the you-have-to-kiss-a-lot-of-toads theory and always gave every man a first date. Both women did marry, but in both cases, they married men they knew upon first glance were not a waste of time, long before the question of a first date came up. So my time isn’t a reward to some man and his time shouldn’t be a reward to me if I’m simply bored. We both deserve more respect than that.

So those are a few of my to-don’ts, my tool to prevent time-suckage. When I look at my list now, it’s hard to believe how many hours I used to throw away.

What’s on YOUR to-don’t list? c Lorna Tedder