Eliminate Decisions

If you want to be successful, consider how you might work to eliminate unimportant decisions in your life.

For example, how much time and energy do you spend each morning trying to decide what to wear? Successful people often wear the same thing every day. Steve Jobs always wore a black turtleneck and jeans. Mark Zuckerberg always wears a gray t-shirt. Barack Obama put it this way: You’ll see I wear only gray or blue suits. I’m trying to pare down decisions. I don’t want to make decisions about what I’m eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make.

The take-home point is we have a limited amount of decision-making power. You can think of your decision-making power like a bank. It’s a limited resource. Every time you have to weigh your options and make a decision, you make a withdrawal from your ‘decision bank.’ Spend too much time on frivolous decisions like what to wear or what to eat for lunch, and you won’t have enough bandwidth to focus on your really important decisions.

Discussion: How many decisions do you make per day? How could you systematize your life to eliminate unimportant decisions?