October has a way of making the end of the year feel like a deadline. There are projects to finish, plans to make, goals to hit, and a growing sense that we should squeeze a few more accomplishments out of the calendar before it runs out.
Here’s a different idea: instead of adding something to your to-do list, take a few things off it.
The goal isn’t to get more done before January. It’s to give yourself a little room to breathe.
Here’s a few candidates for your stop-doing list:
1. The recurring obligation you do out of habit.
That weekly meeting, standing call, volunteer commitment, or regular check-in that no longer seems to accomplish much. If it can wait, cancel it. If it doesn’t need to happen every week, make it monthly. You don’t have to keep doing something simply because you’ve always done it.
2. The project that has quietly become homework.
Maybe it’s a side project, a personal goal, or an initiative you started with enthusiasm but now feel guilty about not advancing. Unless there’s a genuine deadline, give yourself permission to put it on the shelf until January. You can pick it up again when you have more energy—or decide you don’t need to pick it up at all.
3. The low-value task that keeps demanding your attention.
Checking analytics, scrolling through social media for ideas, tweaking something that was already good enough, or responding to every message as if it were urgent. Pick one recurring time sink and put some boundaries around it. You might be surprised by how little breaks when you stop tending to it.
You don’t need to abandon your responsibilities or disappear until the new year. Just look for the things that consume time and attention without giving much back.
And here’s the important part: pausing something is not the same as failing at it. Sometimes it’s simply a decision about where your attention belongs right now.
Make your list. Choose two or three things. Put them on hold until January.
Then resist the temptation to fill the newly available space with something else.
That might be the hardest part of all.