Stop Making the Same Decisions Every Day

(Transcript edited for clarity.)

Welcome to Stop Making the Same Decisions Every Day.

I recently did a show about willpower, and I covered some of this on the willpower episode, which you can check out. But I wanted to get a little deeper into this because this is something that made a huge difference in my life when I started learning how to deal with what I call decision fatigue.

Basically, there are certain decisions I can make one time, and then I don't have to make them again. I don't have to think about these things and think through these decisions again.

Another thing I like to call this is Decide Once.

So the title is Stop Making the Same Decisions Every Day, but to me it's Decide Once, which means I decide once and then I can decide on more important things later.

Here's the basic idea: Every decision you make costs mental energy.

A lot of times, we make little decisions and it doesn't seem like they're a drag on our mental energy. But the more decisions you have to make, the more they can be a drag or a cost on your mental energy.

I work under the belief, and I've also learned this through experience, that most days there are only a few very critical decisions I need to make.

Most of my daily decisions are fairly simple or straightforward. They don't require a lot of deep mental energy. But on the few very important decisions I make every day, it's important for me to be at top mental capacity when I make those decisions.

The way I make sure I am is by doing away with as many little decisions as possible throughout the day.

If you're deciding the same things over and over, you're wasting energy that you could be using somewhere else.

Here's a secret: Good systems or frameworks eliminate unnecessary decisions.

I'm going to give you a couple examples from my life so that maybe you can figure out ways to use this in your life to help you avoid decision fatigue.

Why this matters: I used to make the same little decisions day after day. Eventually, I figured out how taxing this was on my mental energy. It wore me down mentally.

So what did I do? My life became easier when I started making important decisions once instead of making them over and over every day.

Here's a couple examples. First, what I wear.

I mentioned this in the willpower video. If you haven't seen it and you go back to watch it, this is basically the same story. But bear with me. I've got some different things after the story if you've already heard it.

This story is a very good example of reducing mental fatigue by making one decision one time and then going with that decision over and over.

I basically wear the same group of clothes depending on what function I'm going to be in.

When I'm at home, I always wear the exact same thing. I've got about a dozen pairs of pants, and they're interchangeable. When I'm at home, I always wear one of those pairs of pants.

It doesn't matter which one. I don't have to match anything. The clean ones get worn. The dirty ones get thrown in the wash.

So I'm never thinking about what pants I wear. I wear the same shoes everywhere when I'm home, and I wear a white T-shirt when I'm at home.

That's solved. I've got dozens of white T-shirts. I don't have to think about what I'm going to wear when I'm at home.

When I go out, there's one of two options. One option is that I'm going out professionally.

When I go out professionally, at the very least I wear a shirt with a collar like I have on today. A lot of times, I wear a suit. And again, I've only got so many.

I've got around 10 different combinations of suits and shirts. I have more collared shirts than that, but basically it's one of those combinations.

If the color is super important, I make sure to confer with someone who knows more about colors than I do. Usually, I talk to my wife because she knows what colors go with what.

I've also learned not to go out in a suit with a shirt that doesn't match. Not because I learned how to put the colors together, but because my wife trained me one time: This suit goes with these shirts, or vice versa.

So I know the combinations.

I don't spend any time thinking about what I'm going to wear or even what suit I'm going to wear unless it's a very particular situation.

If I'm not going out professionally, if I'm going to the grocery store or wherever, then I also have what I would call an outfit. I have several pairs of pants in two different colors, but to me the color doesn't matter.

Whichever pair of pants in that group is clean, that's what I wear. I always wear black socks, so all my socks are the same. They're all black.

I do have shoes that match my suits, by the way. But I also wear the same shoes for everyday things as I wear when I'm at home.

So I don't have any decision fatigue there at all.

Same thing with the shirts. I have a group of shirts that I wear out. I wear whichever one is clean, or one of the clean ones.

I'm not saying that you can't decide what you're going to wear every day. I'm using this as an example of reducing my decision fatigue.

It doesn't matter what I wear within one of those three groups. I have three groups. The most important one is what I call my professional wear.

Even then, it doesn't matter to me what I wear as long as I look professional. I don't know how to match colors and things, so I talk to an expert. I talk to someone who does.

She trained me once, and now I know what I can wear. I get whichever suit strikes me first, put it on, and that's it.

I don't have to worry about it. I don't have to think about it.

Here's another thing I've done. Another example: meal plans.

I eat exactly the same thing for breakfast and lunch, and pretty much for snacks, every day. I do have a few snacks I'll rotate through, about three or four different snacks.

But for breakfast and lunch, every day is exactly the same. I never have to think about it anymore. I already know what I'm going to eat.

I do like some variety, so we have a group of suppers we go through. But even then, we have a list of about 20 suppers.

My wife and I pick them out ahead of time before I go to the grocery store so I can get the stuff. I already know we're going to eat one of those 20 things. We pick them, and it's done.

Once a week, we decide what we're having for supper, and that's done. That's an example of choosing once and not having to think about it every day.

You might not think this is important, and maybe it's not as important to you as it is to me.

But I've found it makes a huge difference in my ability to make decisions on the important things when I haven't fatigued the decision-making part of my mind before I get to that point.

Decision fatigue is real.

Start keeping track of how many decisions you make every day, and then start keeping track of how it affects how sharp you are mentally on your most important decisions.

Make a recurring decision once whenever possible. Look for decisions you're making every day that you can make once and then remove that decision from your future.

Maybe you're not comfortable making it once and having that solve the decision forever. Do what my wife and I do with our dinner plans. We make the decision once a week, and then we don't have to worry about it all week.

Start there. If you're not comfortable making a decision forever, make a decision for a week. Then you don't have to worry about it for a week.

Another way of looking at this that might help you is that I build defaults into my life everywhere I can.

I simplify everything I can to protect my mental capacity to focus and make good decisions when it's important.

Save your mental energy for decisions that actually matter, and you get to decide which decisions matter to you.

I'm going to close with a final thought.

Don't make life harder by deciding everything every day.

Much of what I teach with Your Life Systems is simplifying things. That's how I've learned that I operate best, and I assume that's why a lot of people watch shows like this: They want to operate at their best.

If you want to operate at your best, consider reducing mental fatigue.

I'll finish with this: Great systems reduce decisions instead of requiring better discipline.

That's pretty important. Discipline only lasts so long.

So again, don't make life harder by deciding everything every day.

Thanks for being with me. I'd like it if you'd follow the channel so you can watch more of these videos. Have a great day.

·        Notice which small decisions you make repeatedly during a normal week.

·        Choose one recurring decision that doesn't deserve daily mental energy.

·        Decide it once, or decide it for the next week if a permanent default feels too rigid.

·        Turn the decision into a simple default, routine, list, or rule.

·        Use the mental space you save for decisions that actually matter.

What's Next?

If you found this helpful:

• Download the free Small Wins Success System Worksheet.

• Subscribe on YouTube for new videos each week.

• Explore more articles and videos from Your Life Systems.