I used ChatGPT to apply Buffett’s two-list rule and transformed my goal setting
▼ Summary
– Warren Buffett’s “two-list” rule involves writing 25 goals, circling the top five, and treating the remaining 20 as an “avoid at all costs” list, not a “later” list.
– The author applied the rule with ChatGPT, which categorized the goals into themes like career, health, and family, reducing pressure.
– ChatGPT helped separate “real” goals from “emotionally noisy” ones by asking if each goal supports the life the author is actively building.
– The “avoid” list was the breakthrough, showing that focus means deciding what matters less right now, providing emotional relief.
– ChatGPT made the strategy more personal by explaining the tradeoffs for each avoided goal, categorizing them as guilt, vanity, someday, or low-impact goals.
I’ve been spending a lot of time rethinking how I set goals, especially after experimenting with Charlie Munger’s inversion strategy to sharpen my productivity. That’s what led me to Warren Buffett’s famous two-list rule, a deceptively simple method used by the Berkshire Hathaway CEO to eliminate distractions and focus on what truly matters. The core idea: write down your top 25 goals, circle the five most critical, and then move the remaining 20 to a second list.
But here’s the kicker , that second list isn’t a “someday” pile. It’s an “avoid at all costs” list.
That felt harsh, because the goals we struggle to let go of are often the ones we still care about deeply. So I decided to try the two-list rule with ChatGPT, dumping in a chaotic brain dump of everything I wanted to accomplish and asking the AI to help me separate the essential from the energy-draining.
What happened next fundamentally shifted how I approach goal setting.
Prompting with the two-list rule
I gave ChatGPT this prompt: “I want to apply Warren Buffett’s two-list rule to my current goals. Help me organize my goals into a clear list of 25. Then identify the five that seem most important based on impact, urgency, long-term value, and alignment with my priorities. Put the remaining 20 on an ‘avoid at all costs’ list and explain why each one might be distracting me from what matters most right now.”
Because I have Memory mode enabled and regularly journal with ChatGPT, the AI already knew many of my goals. I only needed to add a few handwritten items from my calendar this week.
My list included big aspirations, “crazy out-of-the-box” ideas, half-formed plans, and things I kept telling myself I’d eventually get to. ChatGPT’s first helpful move was categorizing my goals into themes like career growth, health, family, creative projects, financial planning, and home maintenance. That alone lifted a huge weight off my shoulders.
ChatGPT helped me see my goals in a new light
The biggest surprise was how quickly ChatGPT distinguished my “real” goals from what I now call emotionally noisy goals. These are the ones that keep tapping me on the shoulder, making me feel guilty when I don’t get to them.
For example, there are always projects I want to start, systems I want to adopt, and personal improvements I want to make. None of them are bad , and that’s exactly the problem. They’re all reasonable, so nothing competes for attention. That’s where Buffett’s rule becomes invaluable.
ChatGPT pushed me to ask a more useful question: Does this goal support the life I’m actively building, or does it just make me feel productive when I think about it? That single question changed everything.
The top-five list was useful, but the avoid list was the breakthrough
The real breakthrough came from the second list. Seeing 20 goals labeled “avoid at all costs” felt strange at first. These weren’t bad goals. Some were things I genuinely wanted to do. But that was exactly the point.
The avoid list taught me that focus isn’t just about choosing what matters , it’s about deciding what matters less right now. And that immediate emotional relief was profound.
There’s something oddly freeing about having an AI look at your messy list and basically say, “You’re allowed to ignore this.” That caught me off guard. Using AI to apply this strategy let me set goals with far less pressure.
ChatGPT made the two-list rule more personal
Buffett’s rule helped me see that a goal can be meaningful and still not belong in this season of life. The reason this worked better with ChatGPT than a notebook is that the AI didn’t just sort the list. It explained the tradeoffs. For each goal moved to the avoid list, I asked why , and that part was both important and fascinating.
Once I had my two lists, I used this follow-up prompt: “For each item on my avoid-at-all-costs list, explain what kind of distraction it represents. Is it a guilt goal, a vanity goal, a someday goal, a low-impact task, or a goal that belongs in a later season? Then tell me what I should do if I feel tempted to work on it this week.”
This helped me understand why those goals were so tempting in the first place.
The takeaway
I should note that I wouldn’t use this prompt every day , that would defeat its purpose. But I will use it monthly or whenever I need more motivation with fewer priorities.
I appreciate that I can be honest with ChatGPT without judgment, even about my big dreams or half-baked ideas. If you try this, I encourage you to share as much of your aspirations as you’re comfortable with. The power of this exercise comes from dumping in the messy, contradictory, and even slightly embarrassing goals too.
Overall, ChatGPT made this strategy easier to practice. For once, my goal list didn’t make me feel like I was falling behind. If you give this prompt a try, let me know in the comments , I’d love to hear how it worked for you.
(Source: Tom’s Guide)
