Busy and lazy

When I’m lazy, I get busy–my schedule fills up indiscriminately. When I’m busy, I know I’ve been lazy.

A mentor advised that “you have to continually fight off those predators that are trying to eat time away from your calendar.” A woman in [Choosing Simplicity](http://books.google.com/books?id=dF1y9zdTpegC) said that she [wrote “NO” on the top of every week’s listing](http://books.google.com/books?id=dF1y9zdTpegC&dq=choosing+simplicity&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=fRUpS8zUCYqCswOUjpXKDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=no%20top%20calendar&f=false) in her agenda so that she’d think hard before accepting something to do that day.

One technique [recommended by author Jim Collins](http://books.google.com/books?id=9Ogzl-3k1eoC&lpg=PP1&dq=good%20to%20great&pg=PA139#v=onepage&q=&f=true) for simplifying your schedule is to [create a “stop doing” list](http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2025-jim-collins-and-the-stop-doing-list).

One year ago I wrote that to be innovative, [it’s sometimes more important what you don’t do than what you do](http://www.ryskamp.org/brain/?p=270). That extends even to removing things that no longer are working.

You have to make room for good things to happen to you.