99: "To Do" Lists vs. "To No" Lists with Host Emmet Scott

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Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of DSO Secrets. I'm your fearless host, Emmett Scott, and today I want to talk about the difference between a to do list and a to know list. Now, all of us know what a to do list is, and it's where you document out everything that you have on your plate. And one of my challenges with to do lists is if it never makes it to my calendar, if it never matches up with time, what I found out is it becomes my to wish list. It doesn't happen now in the dope process. D, O, P, E. And there's a podcast on this. To do lists. Oftentimes when I'm doing them at a company level is my document stage. And then they get organized, prioritized, and then we execute on things. So to do lists can be really helpful in taking things out of your brain and getting them down on paper. So the brain stops reminding me in the shower and when I'm driving, when I'm trying to go to bed at night, which is the worst time ever for reminding me of things I need to do. And by putting them down on paper, I can say, hey, listen, brain, I've already got those documented down. But what about to know list? Well, it's 2021. We had a heck of a time in 2020. We're still battling through a ton of things, but chaos creates. Well, let's just say a lot of chaos in our life. A lot of different things that we went on rabbit chasing routes to capture, things we weren't sure, hey, do we need to take this on? Do we need to take this? Is this the next big thing? Is this going to save my business? Et cetera. So what is a to know list? And this is to. No, not like I need to understand and know something, but like, no, I'm not going to do these things anymore. A to know list is starting to figure out, what are the things you're not going to do anymore. You know, a lot of your success getting to this point is saying yes to things that others were unwilling to say yes to. Long hours, hard work, being ambitious, being innovative, having conversations that others didn't want to have. All of these things. Developing out your leadership skills, attending those conferences, reading that book, saying yes to so many different things so that you can learn, develop and grow. And I'm not saying we're going to say no to all of it, but in that there's a lot of, well, tech guys call it tech debt, we might call it just a lot of white noise that gets created. We start saying yes to everything, and frankly, we have a little bit of fomo fear of missing out. And so we want to make sure that we're capturing this, capturing that. To know lists create a new discipline. What got you here doesn't get you there. And to know lists are starting to say, okay, Emmett, there's a lot of things that you can sign up and do this week. There's a lot of things you can spend your time with, but which things are most important? If I go back to the DOE principle, it helps me to start prioritizing, start organizing. So to know lists are starting to look through my calendar, turning to my assistant, and say, I want you to cancel this appointment this week. I want you to reduce this appointment to this amount of time. I want you to eliminate this thing off my calendar. I want to replace it with this activity instead. What is this activity? Well, it's something that's more important for those of us who understand opportunity costs. It's the thing that's going to get us the higher return on investment. Now, these aren't just financial things. It might be. I want you to cancel that. And I'm going to schedule a breakfast with my wife so that we can connect this week. And we're going to do that on a regular basis. So there's lots of different things that have bigger opportunity cost if I don't do them. To know less, start to create that discipline. What got you here won't get you there. And so in order to get to the next level, you start to really prune things down and say, these are the things that are most important. So I'm curious what your to know list is going to be if you sat down and looked at your calendar right now. Is all of it important? I was sitting with a good advisor and I said, yeah, but if I cancel this out, what if it's a really, you know, I was having fomo, what if it's a really good opportunity, what if it's an acquisition? What if it's something I need to understand in the marketplace? And he said to me, could you take action on it right now? And the answer was no, I've got too much on my plate. He said, so what's the use of even knowing it at this point? And I was like, wow, that's a really good point. Cancel that appointment. So I. I think for all of us, we have paradigms, we have reasons, we have systems that have worked for our success up to a certain stage. And a lot of getting to our next level of success is going to be dependent upon our ability to kill those sacred cows. I often joke I'm in Texas, so sacred cows make good barbecue. But they're really hard in my mind when I've got certain paradigms, when I've reinforced in my head that doing certain activities have driven the right level of success to now say, but not anymore, Emmett. That's not going to get you to the next level anymore. So that's your challenge for 2021. That's my challenge. What's going to go on your To Know list that'll open up higher and better uses for you. I hope this is helpful. I would love to hear from you. Come over on our Facebook site on DSO Secrets. I'd love to know what's on your To Know list. I'll make sure that I post this on there. And until next time, keep smiling.

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