The Answer to Decision Fatigue

By some estimates, we make 35,000 decisions per day.  I'm writing this post at 7:42am on a Sunday.  So far, I've had to decide on the following:

1. what time to wake up
2. what to wear
3. what to drink
4. how much coffee creamer to put in my coffee
5. whether to have morning devotions on the porch or in the living room
6. whether to text my wife who just ran an errand
7. whether to use Safari or Chrome for the news
8. whether to draft this post now or save it for later

You get the point.  

I was a skeptic when I first heard the 35,000 statistic.  Then, I was honest with myself and started to inventory the many, many actions I take each day and the decisions that drive them. 

This is exhausting and can ultimately sap your energy and your productivity.  

Asian Efficiency provides the ultimate guide to overcoming decision fatigue.  No need to replicate their good work.  Their companion podcast also does an excellent job in breaking the issue down. 

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Decision fatigue hit me last week.  I arrived home and declared to my wife, "I'm done.  I can't make any more decisions today."  It wasn't anger.  It was exhaustion.  

Can you relate?  Have you had a time when you were just so tired of making decisions that you felt you couldn't make one more?  

The answer, I suspect, and the response to all of this is to do the following:

  • Admit that you've got too much on your plate. As the saying goes, the first step is to admit you've got a problem.  This isn't a moral failure but an acknowledgement that your life is full and maybe spilling over with commitments.
  • Decide today to simplify.  The good news?  Simplifying takes many forms and can be applied to any of the following areas:

-finances: you can decide to go out less often or automate your bills.


-fitness: you can decide to eat smaller portions or use a meal planning process.


-spirituality: you can decide to use the same prayer book each morning instead of searching for one.


-work: you can decide to work on certain things on certain days.


-wardrobe: you can decide you streamline your wardrobe and pair back your options.


-groceries: you can decide to use an Amazon Dash button to make less decisions at the grocery store.

You get the point.  These areas and corresponding actions are easy to read (and actually easy to do) but take courage to act on.  

Take the case of simplifying your wardrobe.  You and I both know that a simpler wardrobe will save time and money.  Yet, if I told you today to go through your closet and write down a few outfits that you absolutely love, that's where the process might fall apart.

Those actions, while not difficult, are hard.  They involve loss and further decisions.  They involve donating things and possibly buying new things.  They take time.

Could your simplifying contribute to decision fatigue?  Perhaps but once you press through, keeping your eye on the goal, you'll overcome it.  These decisions are actually ones that will counteract the others that feed into decision fatigue.

As a homework assignment, make a small decision today to simplify.  

One thing.  

Anything.  

Realize that it can counteract your decision fatigue and bring more peace of mind.  Then, you'll be able to bring your very best self to those you love and ultimately, the whole world.

How to Make Lists Work for You

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The most productive people I know use lists to stay organized.  Most people appreciate the value of a good list- for groceries or for Christmas shopping.  

What the uber-productive people know is that the same magic that makes a grocery store list so good can be scaled to other areas of life.  

The result: super productivity and greater peace of mind.

Think of the grocery store list and why it works so well:

  • It matches need to resource.
  • It gives you items to cross off. This feels so good!
  • It takes a store with tens of thousands of items to offer and simplifies it to your needs and wants.

Where a grocery store list can be brought to the next level is when you keep a list going throughout a week.  The milk runs low on Tuesday and "milk" goes on your list. Tortillas show up on Friday and also go on your list.  By the time Sunday rolls around and you're ready for the store, you already have your list.  This is how you can make your lists work for you instead of the dread of having to add things at the last minute.

I use this at work for upcoming cities and travel.  For example, it's unlikely that I'll remember all of the people I want to visit the next time I'm in Boston.  But, I can remember a little at a time and add to my list in the months leading up to my next trip to Beantown.

I currently have lists for:

  • next time in Cincinnati
  • next time in Boston
  • next time in LA
  • next time in Florida

I find these sort of "add as you go" lists work really well around the house.  At a random moment, you might have an idea of something you need for your porch to get finished.  As you already have an "Around the House" list (or better yet, a Finish the Porch project), you can simply add when the muse hits you.  Then, on a Saturday when you have time, you just open your list and get to work.

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This process also works well for gift giving.  My wife is notoriously difficult to shop for so I keep a list just for her birthday and Christmas.  When she drops a hint of something that she might like, I add it to my list like a super-sleuth.  Boy does it make things easier when I then go to purchase a gift!

As a follow up, I suggest looking at your current lists.  This presumes that you're using a digital task manager (like Nozbe which is my favorite or Omnifocus or even a paper planner) to stay on top of your lists.  After a quick scan, identify which of your lists you can "populate" as you go through your week.  You may be surprised by how many of them are ready for you to add items as you go.

Then, and this is the key, have the courage to add to your lists on the fly.  

You'll be tempted to just have a thought and then let it go.  Instead, pause and add to your lists.  Don't let the hectic pace of life sabotage your lists.  You'll feel good about it and your productivity will go to the next level.
 

Is a Notebook Your Best Productivity Investment?

Everywhere you look, people are using old-fashioned notebooks.  It's not that they've given up their smartphones but that they are using notebooks to bring some analogue into their daily lives.

A smartphone, complemented by a portable notebook is a powerful combo for everyday productivity.  

I have been a hybrid paper-digital user for years.  While Google Calendar keeps my "hard landscape" events in place, I find there's nothing like paper and pen to navigate the nitty-gritty details of my daily work.  This includes meeting notes, doodles and notes from phone calls. 

David Sax, in his best-selling book The Revenge of Analog: Real Things and Why They Matter, details the rise in popularity of such notebooks like Moleskine and Baron Fig:

“Numerous studies have shown that handwriting notes is simply better for engagement, information retention, and mental health than is writing on digital devices.” 

When you write things down, your brain activates on a deeper level than if you just think something or type it into your computer.

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Moleskine isn't the only popular brand of notebook.  There's also the Bullet Journal which has given folks a clever way to stay organized.  Consider it "stylized productivity".

The bottom line- notebooks are back and they're cool once again.

There's one catch: what if you want all of the benefits of a fancy notebook but would rather save the $15 that often goes with it?  

After all, consider the costs of the most popular "in" notebooks:

  • Bullet Journal: $24.95
  • Baron Fig: $15-65

There are some other options.  You can use an inexpensive notebook.  You can create your own system as David Seah has done.  Or, you can use a whiteboard to get your creative, handwriting juices flowing.

The most important idea is this- connecting paper with digital is a smart move.  You just need to find an expression of this marriage that works for your style and your budget.


 

Why You Need an Evening Routine

This is a guest post by Hank Geng from Min-Max Your Life.  Hank writes about productivity and organization, helping readers overcome overwhelm and procrastination.

When was the last time you looked at your phone? Checked your email?  10 minutes ago?  Less?

In this day and age, we’re addicted to our screens, and we get barraged from every direction. So many things demand our time, and in the process of managing it all, it’s easy to lose sight of what really matters to you. 

It’s incredibly helpful to make a habit of unplugging on a daily basis so you can stop this constant flow of information and have a chance to recharge. 

This works best in the context of an evening routine that prepares you for the next day, allows you to reflect on what you are grateful for, puts you in a relaxed mood, and lets you get a good night’s sleep to wake up refreshed and energized. 

There’s no one size fits all approach, but you can get started on creating your own evening routine by following this four-step simple formula: 

The Four Steps

  • Review tomorrow’s schedule and tasks to make sure you don’t have any surprises. You may want to:
  1. Plan out what you’re going to wear in the morning
  2. Set your alarm for when you need to wake up
  3. Decide how you’re getting to your first destination tomorrow
  • Reflect on today by asking yourself a few essential questions:
  1. What are you grateful for?
  2. What made this day unique?
  3. Did you learn something new? 
  • Relax by putting your screens away and starting to wind down. You could try one of the following:
  1. Read a physical book or your Kindle
  2. Yoga
  3. Meditate
  • Rest by turning off your lights, drawing the curtains, and going to sleep. 
  1. People require different amounts of sleep, but start with allotting yourself 8 hours for sleep and go from there.

By creating your own evening routine that includes these four factors, you’ll start waking up the next morning refreshed and energized, ready to face the day. 

Do you have an evening routine?

If not, try reserving an hour before your bedtime tonight to try creating your own using the framework above.

Four Reasons Against Working From Home

There was this guy.  He wore casual clothing and seemed to be present at 100% of his kids' school events.  

I secretly wondered what he did for a living but never had the guts to go over and ask him.  

As it turns out, he worked from home.  Doing something related to software (that's usually enough of a response at the neighborhood cocktail party as in "yeah, I'm in software"), he managed to support his family and live to talk about it.  Even more, he seemed quite happy with his life.  

His name was Kevin.

There are a lot of Kevins out there- people who work either occasionally or often from a home office.  This seems odd, as something luxurious and novel but not as something that "normal people" do.

The modern workplace, broken and dysfunctional as it typically is, wants us to think that a long commute is normal.  Add in frequent interruptions, bad lighting and boring meetings.

I was that guy and those were normal things for me.  While I wondered what Kevin did for a living, I secretly envied him.  

Fast forward five years and I now work from home about half of every day.  My wardrobe, unless I'm at a meeting, is business casual.  You don't want to come between me and my kids' basketball games.  It's a new normal for me and it feels very good.

Still, it's not for everyone.

In fact, there are four reasons why you should not consider working from home:

  1. You crave people contact on a daily basis.  If this is a big deal for you, don't work from home.  When you work from home, you can have as much contact as you like or need but it will be contact that you make happen.  There are no "drop-ins", etc.
  2. You can't see technology as a viable replacement for face-to-face contact.  For me, a Zoom or Skype call "counts" as real communication.  If you can't see yourself ever making that substitution, working from home isn't for you.
  3. You don't have a dedicated space.  This is big.  I don't think you necessarily need an entire room (although that helps) but you do need some space that is only used for work. If no desk/room/nook exists at your home for you to work in, working from home might not be for you.
  4. You worry too much about what others will think.  Your neighbors will wonder what you do.  Other parents at your kids' school will do the same (as I did with Kevin).  If you can't handle that level of scrutiny, working from home might not be for you.

Here's an experiment that you might want to try: work from home for two hours one day and see how you like it.  It doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing affair.  Being honest with the four conditions above can go a long way towards determining if home-working is for you.

BONUS: while no longer an active podcast, the best one I've found related to working from home is called Home Work.

6 Lessons From Working at Home

It's been, more or less, six months since I began working from home.  

In full disclosure, I do have another office that I use occasionally during the week; that is five minutes away.  I also use a local Panera and the town library. All of these locations make up my "office".

Before I started working from home, I would read about people who just loved it.  They raved about the flexibility, the personalization, and the deep productivity it afforded.  It seemed like the way to go.  As an introvert, I've always enjoyed time in quiet spaces so I figured I would give it a try.

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The lessons have been many.  Here are six that stand out:

  1. It's unglamorous.  When no one is around and no one does the old  "got a minute" interruption, it's just you and your work.  At the end of the day, you need to crank work and get things done.  There's nothing sexy about that and you won't get bonus points for wearing a nicer tie.  That's not to say that it's bad, just different.  It's you and your work.
  2. Being able to change your location is magical.  For me, working for three hour blocks of time works well.  I can get in a morning block of work, take lunch, and then get another three hour block of time before dinner.  I suspect that six strong hours of work is way more than I ever got in a traditional office layout.  
  3. You begin to appreciate time.  I track my hours each day.  Even a 15 minute block of time gets put down in the book.  I've realized that, when you work from home, you appreciate what you can get done in a small (or large) block of time.  Before, the parts of the day just blended together.
  4. You realize how much junk fills the day of the average office worker.  I don't have a commute which means that I don't have to  wake up early (although I still do but now it's by choice).  I don't have to add forty minutes to my morning and forty minutes home.  I don't have to spend 15-30 minutes each day with chit-chat.  There are very few interruptions.  As I think back to work in a traditional office space, I realize just how much "stuff" fills the average day and it's not very productive.  
  5. Themed days are a must.  Each of my days is "built" around a particular theme.  Monday is for content creation.  Friday is for administrative tasks.  The days in the middle have their own themes.  Theming is important because it gives structure to your week and gives you a roadmap of what you want to accomplish.  
  6. Most meetings are useless.  I still have meetings but now they are via Skype, Zoom or a conference call.  They have a set time to begin and often end early.  They are pleasant and typically quite effective.  

I'm still figuring this out.  For those who have worked from home for years, I admire your wisdom and hope to keep learning from your experience.  

How about you?  Where do you work best?  Of the six lessons above, do any strike a chord with you?