New Year’s Resolutions Fail. Do This Instead

With research indicating that 80% of people ditch their New Year’s resolutions by February , it’s time to officially label this ritual as an exercise in futility. Instead of wasting time on your 2023 intentions and resolutions, consider doing the exact opposite.

This year Establish a Don’t-Do List. As in, identify every time-wasting task and low-value meeting in your (and your team’s) work life and commit to avoiding them for the next 12 months. Through the process of researching and writing Why Simple Wins , I recognized what leaders like Oprah and Warren Buffet already knew: there’s enormous value in saying no to time-sucks and distractions at work.

Since behavior change sounds easier than it is, I recommend backing up a few steps and identifying examples of when and how your time is spent unproductively. To determine what should appear on your Don’t-Do List, answer the following questions objectively:

• Which of my/our current tasks don’t bring value to the business?

• Would anyone miss this task if I/we stopped doing it? (If the answer is “nobody,” get rid of it pronto.)

• Is another person/team already doing this task and could they take solo ownership of it?

• If I/we had to hand off two of my/our responsibilities, what should be given away and to whom? What’s stopping me/us from doing this today?

• Which of my/our daily tasks could become weekly? Which weekly tasks could be done monthly?

• What steps could be eliminated from this task?

When an org in the retail sector answered these six questions, duplicate efforts were discovered in the areas of meetings, project management and consumer data. If you’re in a leadership role, consider scheduling a Demo-Day style forum where every team presents their Don’t-Do Lists. In these sessions, redundancies are often easy to pinpoint and leaders are more inclined to simplify on the spot.

Creating an annual Don’t-Do List can help your teams eliminate low-value work so you can focus on achieving your goals for the next 12 months. It’s a mindful way to let go of unproductive tasks and make space for the new year. And — prediction alert — if you stick with your Don’t-Do List beyond January 31, you’ll expand your awareness of time-sucks and increase your ability to resist them.

By Lisa Bodell, Contributor