The ‘Not Now’ List

For March, I’ve been working on a pair of website refreshes for two of my properties/productized service businesses:

  • My done-for-you Podcast Tour property (Get On Podcasts!)
  • My Growth + SEO Consultancy for Shopify Merchants (Double Your Ecommerce)

Over the years, I’ve learned that the downright best way to get my brain thinking on marketing strategy and growth tactics is to be elbow deep writing copy for services. When those stars align, ideas and inspiration flood my brain.

Alas, those exact moments — when I’m working on getting the copy polished and the sites up and launched — aren’t generally the best time to refresh my marketing strategy or ideate on new tactics.

My goal is always to move the big rocks first, and getting the website launched is the big rock I want to move.

Enter the ‘Not Now’ list.

As ideas come to mind, I capture them.

But instead of adding them to my to-do list (and transforming it into a ‘never done’ list), I put these ideas on my ‘Not Now’ list for the project.

A Not Now list is a special place to store ideas, actions, and tasks that I may tackle in the future and that I’m intentionally not doing now. These are things for Future Kai to consider.

You might have heard of a not-to-do list before. With a not-to-do list, you’re deciding on what you are (and are not) doing. Then you make a list of things you aren’t going to do. As you get tempted, you can check your not-to-do list and remind yourself of what you aren’t going to do.

The Not Now list is a bit different but helps you get to a similar destination.

By parking your tasks and ideas in your Not Now list, you’re helping keep yourself on track.

But your Not Now list can turn into an inspiration or ideation list for the future. The next time you decide to work on the project, you can look at your Not Now list and see what notes, hints, and ideas Past You wrote down for Future You to think on.

And if the past wasn’t the right time for those ideas, maybe now is.

Excelsior!

Kai