This list comes from the Growth Hacking Weekly newsletter by @Fan Bing (XDash). In the spirit of trading ideas for ideas, Fan Bing offered readers a useful document in exchange for one item from their stop-doing lists. More than 100 people responded.
After combining and categorizing the submissions, he published these 75 entries, which I’ve excerpted from the newsletter.
Relationships
1. Don’t compare yourself with others.
2. Don’t complain about your parents.
3. Don’t badmouth people.
4. Don’t make false accusations.
5. Don’t say, “Do you understand what I mean?”
6. Don’t shut yourself away in your own little world.
7. Don’t lend more than you can afford.
8. Don’t waste time trying to win arguments or change people’s minds.
9. Stop trying to please both sides. Learning to say no is fairer.
10. Don’t let your emotions do the problem-solving or use them to escape reality.
11. Stop letting people get away with emotional blackmail. Make anyone who tries it pay a price.
12. Stop entering relationships you don’t genuinely want for the sake of some other goal.
13. Stop lecturing people. If you have no convictions you’ve thought through and made your own, try to stay quiet.
14. Stop going to class reunions.
15. Stop jumping in with a rebuttal. Hear the other person out first.
16. Stop replying to people who just want to argue.
17. Stop chasing someone who doesn’t reciprocate.
18. Don’t try to change another person.
19. Drop the unnecessary formalities. Stop being harsh with the people closest to you or losing your temper with them.
20. Cut out aimless small talk and pay attention to your own needs.
21. Stop putting the other person first in every situation. Set ground rules before taking action.
22. Stop talking to people who don’t care about you.
23. Stop rushing to give your opinion.
24. Say goodbye to pointless socializing.
25. Know when to cut your losses in a relationship.
Habits
26. Don’t smoke or drink.
27. Don’t binge on food or drink.
28. Don’t eat high-calorie fried foods after 10 p.m.
29. Avoid milk tea with too much low-quality fat and sugar, and skip sugary coffee drinks.
30. Don’t eat jackfruit or ask what it tastes like.
31. Don’t chase trivial credit card perks or spend time hunting for tiny deals.
32. Don’t get into messy flirtations.
33. Stop staying up late.
34. Stop slipping into negative moods without noticing.
35. Stop trying to do two things at once, like watching a livestream to shop for clothes while studying Korean.
36. Don’t take the bus after 12.
37. During the summer rainy season, take the high-speed train between Beijing and Shanghai instead of insisting on flying.
38. Put a task off at most twice. Finish it before you can put it off a third time.
39. Stop seeking out ugly or obnoxious content for entertainment, including pointless antics, stunts that flout basic standards of decency, and shoddily made content.
Leisure Time
40. Don’t visit overcommercialized tourist cities like Lijiang.
41. Stop carrying a camera when you go out. Take photos with your phone.
42. Don’t buy elaborate planners. Keep your to-do list on your phone.
43. Don’t buy suede shoes or cinnamon-flavored coffee.
44. Don’t buy investment products offering unusually high returns.
45. Don’t buy lottery tickets.
46. Don’t chase rising prices.
47. Stop trading cryptocurrency.
48. Don’t borrow money on credit to invest.
49. Quit gambling.
50. Stop spending money before you earn it.
Digital Life
51. Stop reaching for your phone whenever you’re bored or anxious. Gradually cut back on mindless scrolling.
52. Don’t look at any electronic device in the half hour before bed.
53. Don’t read web novels if they keep you up late and help you put off things you need to do.
54. Don’t play online games made by domestic publishers or any game that uses in-app spending to confer social status and feed vanity.
55. Stop using apps that recommend content through a feed, or at least skip their feed features.
56. Stop scrolling through Douyin to kill time.
57. Stop using the bookmark button. You’ll rarely go back to read or listen to anything you save. Read the article and take notes while it’s in front of you.
58. Stop sharing images that contain personal information before removing it.
59. Stop buying more foreign SaaS services than you need.
Work and Learning
60. Stop pretending to study hard.
61. Stop studying English for its own sake. Using the language matters more.
62. Don’t switch jobs blindly before you’ve figured out what you want.
63. Stop spending so much time trying to shore up your weaknesses.
64. Don’t start a company on enthusiasm alone.
65. Stop feeling awkward about discussing money or ashamed to talk about making a profit.
66. Sell people what they want rather than what they need. People need to learn, for example, but they want to succeed without having to study.
67. Stop making commitments at meetings or gatherings with more than 20 people.
68. Stop researching technology that does nothing to improve your thinking.
69. Stop attending meetings that offer no value.
Other
70. Stop looking only at the big picture. Pay attention to the details and reflect on how you’ve grown.
71. Stop insisting on perfection. Don’t devote too much effort to squeezing out the last fraction of a percentage point.
72. Stop dwelling on the past and regretting what’s already happened.
73. Don’t consult a true expert before doing something.
74. When making any decision, focus on opportunity costs and set sunk costs aside.
75. Stop counting on luck. Always look at the probabilities behind events. Spend your time improving what you can influence and change, and let go of what you can’t.