Twitter and Square co-founder Jack Dorsey suggests you create a daily ‘Do and Don’t List’. This is his.

Square co-founder and Twitter chairman Jack Dorsey made an appearance at Y Combinator’s Startup School event where he spoke about acceptance and motivation in how you build a team and company. You can’t do something without a common share or purpose — you will wobble and not do anything that is timeless.

Reading from Robert Henri’s “The Art Spirit“, Dorsey made comparisons about what’s in the story with how it relates to startups. He said that entrepreneurs should build what they want and with purpose.

Additionally, he makes reference to Bill Walsh’s “The Score Takes Care of Itself” and put an emphasis on leadership. Dorsey thinks that if you’re not establishing best practices in your growing company, you are losing out. He says that you shouldn’t let yourself building someone else’s road map — focus on your own.

For most of his 30 minute talk, Dorsey tried to connect the audience with specific parts from these two books. One specific element that he wanted to resonate with everyone was the establishment of a “list” to help entrepreneurs better center themselves.

The 💜 of EU tech

The latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol' founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It's free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!

Here’s some of the items from Jack’s “do” list:

1. Stay present: don’t focus on the past or the future.
2. Be vulnerable: show people your mistakes and fears so that they can relate
3. Drink only lemon water and red wine
4. Six sets of 20 squats and push-ups every day, run for 3 miles, meditate on this list, stand up straight, spend 10 minutes with a heavy bag
5. Say hello to everyone
6. Get 7 hours of sleep

Here’s his “don’ts”:

1. Don’t avoid eye contact
2. Don’t be late
3. Don’t set expectations and not meet them
4. Don’t eat sugar
5. Don’t drink hard liquor or beer during the weekday

He says that by formulating a list, it helps establish healthy patterns for people to live better lives. By putting together a list, it will eliminate noise and allow you to focus on things. Both Square and Twitter employees have set up their own list to continue to enable them to innovate and reset what they think about their organization.

So what happens when everything goes right and you move away from internal creation to working together? You create a product that delights people that forces them to engage with it and “tap their feet to it.”

It’s interesting to see Dorsey speaking publicly especially in light of Twitter’s IPO filing.

Listen to this post as audio, courtesy of SaveToListen.

Photo credit: Brian Harkin/Getty Images