Speaking of defining the things you’re not going to do, Michael Hyatt wrote about the importance of having a not-to-do list. It’s the same premise as David Sparks’ aforelinked No Journal.
When I was the director of marketing for the International House of Prayer, I kept a mental No Journal / Not-To-Do List. And, over time, my assistant and a few of my direct reports whom I worked with the closest learned what my own priorities for the things I would not spend my time on were, as well as the things our office simply could not afford to take on.
However, since I began working for myself over six months ago, I’ve found that keeping a No Journal / Not-To-Do List populated is significantly more difficult. The reason, I think, is that now all of my incoming tasks and priorities are self-initiated. They are my own ideas and goals and dreams. Assessing and prioritizing those is much more difficult because I’m already biased to do all of them thanks to the very nature of their origin.