The Most Underrated Strategy Tool: The Stop Doing List

We all have lim­it­ed resources. It does­n’t mat­ter the indus­try or the scale; the con­straints are always the same: Time. Cap­i­tal. Team band­width. Men­tal energy.

Yet, when we sit down to archi­tect a ​“break­out” year or a high-impact quar­ter, we almost instinc­tive­ly grav­i­tate toward the same strate­gic error. We try to add more. More ini­tia­tives, more projects, more stretch goals — more of those ​“this should only take an hour” tasks that inevitably take ten.

We treat our capac­i­ty like an infi­nite ves­sel rather than a finite ecosys­tem. If you want to accel­er­ate, you have to stop look­ing at just what to add and start look­ing at what is cre­at­ing drag.

Why ​“Stop Doing” Mat­ters More Than ​“Do More”

In Your Oxy­gen Mask First, I have a chap­ter called ​“Lick Your Toads.” It’s about clear­ing the back­log of things that cre­ate fric­tion and slow you down. Usu­al­ly, these aren’t high-lev­el strate­gic things; they are the ​“admin­is­tra­tive cleanup” of work and life.

The prob­lem is that most orga­ni­za­tions have far more men­tal fric­tion than they real­ize. It’s the ​“drag” we col­lect over time:

• New prod­ucts or ser­vices that nev­er launched or took off
• Lega­cy process­es that no longer serve a purpose.
• Low-val­ue meet­ings that have become mind­less rituals.
• “Busi­ness as usu­al” tasks that no one has ques­tioned in years.

When you clear out the ​“toads,” some­thing inter­est­ing hap­pens. You don’t just get time back; you get men­tal band­width back. And band­width is where the big deci­sions — the ones that actu­al­ly move the nee­dle — live.

The Dis­ci­pline of the ​“Stop Doing” List

In our quar­ter­ly plan­ning ses­sions, the ​“Stop Doing” list is a reg­u­lar dis­ci­pline. We don’t do it every sin­gle time, but we do it often enough to keep the sys­tem lean. This is the per­fect time of year to look at your own list, because stop­ping does­n’t just apply to the office; it applies to your life.

Per­son­al­ly, this might mean stopping:

• Spend­ing time with peo­ple who drain your battery.
• Habits or activ­i­ties that no longer serve who you are today.
• Newslet­ters you nev­er read or sub­scrip­tions you for­got you had. (Hope­ful­ly, this isn’t the newslet­ter you stop reading!)
• Giv­ing away extra, unused stuff in your clos­et, stor­age or garage

In your busi­ness, it might mean stopping:

• Work­ing with spe­cif­ic sup­pli­ers or ven­dors that cause more grief than they’re worth.
• Inter­nal meet­ings that waste every­one’s time.
• Serv­ing those few cus­tomers you actu­al­ly dread deal­ing with.
• Main­tain­ing a line of busi­ness that just does­n’t make sense anymore.

Unal­lo­cate Before You Reallocate

As lead­ers, we talk a lot about resource allo­ca­tion. We think about mov­ing resources from ​“agony” into ​“growth” or from ​“analy­sis” into ​“action.”

But the most pow­er­ful move you can make isn’t mov­ing resources around — it’s unal­lo­cat­ing them.

When you stop work that should­n’t exist, you free the sys­tem. You cre­ate a vac­u­um. Only then can you find a bet­ter, high­er-val­ue option for that time, ener­gy, and cap­i­tal. If you skip this step, you’re just stack­ing new pri­or­i­ties on top of old ones and won­der­ing why every­thing feels so heavy.

Chal­lenge:

You don’t need a full off­site to start this. You just need a bit of hon­esty. Sit with these three questions:

1. Per­son­al­ly: What would I stop doing if I were seri­ous about hav­ing more time and energy?
2. With the Team: What would we stop doing if we want­ed bet­ter results with less friction?
3. The Busi­ness: What would we stop doing if we were design­ing this com­pa­ny fresh today?

Bet­ter years don’t come from doing every­thing. They come from doing few­er things that actu­al­ly mat­ter. Before you add the next big ini­tia­tive, clear the drag. Free the band­width. Then decide what deserves your oxygen.

Addi­tion­al Resources:

• Arti­cle — How Suc­cess­ful Lead­ers Pre­pare for the Week Ahead
• Arti­cle– Task Man­age­ment: Pre­vent Mice from Becom­ing Elephants
• Arti­cle — Use the Prin­ci­ple of Two Cir­cles to Make Bet­ter Choices
• Pod­cast — Elim­i­nate Your Emo­tion­al­ly Tax­ing Issues