A lot of people reflect on what they’ve done, either daily or weekly. I’m one of them. Every morning, I write down three things I want to accomplish that day—sometimes on paper, sometimes in a text file—and try to check them off throughout the day. Most days, I manage to complete them, but there are also days when I don’t, which is absolutely normal.

A few weeks ago, I realized that I hadn’t completed most of the tasks I had written down for the day. When I looked back at the entire week, I noticed the same pattern! I was confused because, by the evening, I was so exhausted that I couldn’t do anything else. My energy had to be going somewhere else. So, I decided to track how I was spending my time each day, writing down everything I did for a few days. That’s when I noticed something interesting:

For the past three weeks, I had been spending a significant amount of time following a political figure. My interest in Future Studies had led me to discover this person, whose job is in that field. I started watching almost all their videos on YouTube and scrolling through their content on social media platforms like Instagram and X. Thanks to social media personalization and recommendation algorithms, I was introduced to even more figures in the same space, and I began watching their videos as well. After a week, I realized that most of my time was being consumed by this, which explained why I was so drained by the end of the day.

Sometimes, instead of writing a to-do list, we should write a “not-to-do” list. Here’s an example:

• Don’t check social media today.
• Don’t follow the news today.
• Don’t eat sugar today.
• Don’t drink today.

Achievement isn’t always about doing more—it can also be about avoiding the things that drain your time and energy. If you don’t check social media, you’ll have more time for things that actually matter.