Have you ever made a “To Do” list? I guess everyone has. I love the feeling of checking items off the list, the feeling of accomplishment.
Photo courtesy of Photos.com - apcuk
Recently I was challenged to begin doing life differently. The reality dawned on me that if I was going to make the necessary changes, I needed to stop certain behaviors. The “To Do” list was easy; the “To Don’t” list became the more important list. How could I head in a new direction if I did not stop some old activities/habits?
In that vain, I decided that I should write a “To Don’t” list for this website, except I am doing it as an “I Will Not” list. In this respect it is not as much about stopping certain behaviors as about committing to refrain from starting them.
I WILL NOT:
* I will not personally dishonor any of my Turkish neighbors (neighbor in the broad sense) in writing this blog. (This is a difficult one to keep. I was concerned with the Kilibik post. I showed it to a Turkish friend, and he said it did not cross the line.)
* I will not write gossip.
* I will not affiliate advertise something I have not used without specifically mentioning it. (For example, I had not read all of the books on my 29 Books list, but I made that explicitly clear.) My ads on the sidebar are a mix of google Adsense and my own personally controlled ads. This refers to the ads I get to choose. I hope the distinction is clear.
* I will not put this blog ahead of my family in my priorities (See Monday’s post and ask my wife every so often.)
* I will not personally take information from my readers without their knowledge (Note: With google and cookies being used, you can expect basic information available from your computer to be taken by some computer somewhere in the world which is true of almost every website you visit; I do not really understand how all of that works).
* I will not sell information I have about you to another service.
* I will not lie about statistics like follower count and such. (I will not knowingly lie about anything, but here I am speaking to the issue of inflating stats to make the blog look better.)
* I will not knowingly break US or Turkish law in the way I administer this blog.
* I will not see/use people as a means to get money or improve my blogging reputation.
* I will not hesitate to apologize/make it right when I realize I have messed up on this blog.
I also made a “To Don’t” list when I started blogging as I quickly realized that I could not do everything I had been doing and give enough time to this project. Of the two lists I felt this was a better one to share with you. [For more information on the To Don't list, check out this post by Michael Hyatt: ]
How could you benefit by making a To Don’t list?
