January is a time of review and planning, of looking forward and making goals and resolutions for the coming year.

But sometimes as well as defining what we are going to do in our business and life, it’s essential to identify those things we are going to stop. I was inspired to put together my own To Stop List after I read an article in the Harvard Business Review where the author shared 5 things to stop doing in 2012. Soon after Michael Nobbs from Sustainably Creative asked in his member’s forum what were people’s resolutions and plans for the New Year. I shared my idea of a To Stop List and it generated a really interesting debate.

I wanted to share my To Stop List with you today and invite to create your own.

1. Using Twitter as a work/people avoidance tactic.

Safe to say I have been a bit of a Twitter addict in the past. I find it a great way to keep up to date with what’s happening in my areas of interest and find it a good way to keep in contact with people as well. But Twitter can be very addictive. It shares some characteristics with email in that it has what is called uneven rewards – we never know if there is something exciting waiting for us.

With the Retweet button it has become so easy to share information but this is adding to all the noise on the social web. I have always been mindful of thinking before I hit Tweet but this year I have been practicing waiting that second more and considering whether this piece of information is really valuable to my followers.

Blogger Alexandra Samuel calls Twitter ‘a tiny gym for the brain’ so I will be exercising my Twitter muscles this year! Read her Social Sanity Manifesto for 2012 if want to get your social media habit under control.

2. Agreeing to ‘coffees’ with people with no clear agenda or business objective.

One of the great things about working and living in Lisbon for five weeks recently was that the requests for meeting for coffee just stop or have to be declined. Meeting for a coffee with a work acquaintance may seem like an innocuous and fun thing to do but a coffee can take a good three hours out of my day with travel time. My goal for the year is only to agree to meet for a coffee if there is a clear business objective i.e. potential client or collaborator.

Another tactic I am trying is saying yes more slowly i.e. ignore the request first time around, then postpone it, then ignore it again. Usually I find that if I don’t want to say yes straight away to a request then two weeks later it becomes easier to say no.

3. Subscribing to/reading email newsletters.

Ah, my nemesis. Like Twitter I find email newsletters a good way of keeping up to date but at times I feel myself being overwhelmed by the amount of email I get. Since the beginning of the New Year I have been actively taking the time (instead of just deleting) newsletters that I feel are no longer providing value for me. I have unsubscribed from some bloggers updates that I have been following for years but their voice no longer resonates with where I am. Most email newsletters have a one click unsubscribe button but if they don’t I have been setting up delete filters in my Gmail to remove them from my Inbox forever.

Does this sound familiar? Have a look through your Inbox today and see what you can get rid of.

4. Doing work for free.

Being a digital coach I get asked a LOT of digital questions. Mainly it’s requests by email but sometimes it’s a request to ‘pick my brain’ in person. I do believe in giving back and in helping others as much as you can – I wrote about this recently for The Business Yogi book (out in March) in the content of Karma Yoga – service without expecting any thing in return.

But when does free become a problem? I was fascinated to read Alexandra Samuel’s article on her blog about respecting the billable hour. She poses the question – would you ask someone for $500? OK, so I don’t bill out at $500/hour but the principle is sound. This year I will be thinking carefully about the requests for free advice while still helping those who need support through 8fold Social.

What’s on your To Stop List for 2012? Do share in the comments.

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