Decision fatigue is real. Are too many decisions slowing down your progress? Luckily, there’s a better way to get things done – while still being your own boss.
You might think that as someone running a business and your own life, the more decisions you make, the more successful you stand to be. The problem is, the average person already makes around 35,000 decisions every single day, from what they’ll wear and what they’ll listen to in the car, all the way to what they’ll have for dinner. This is a recipe for decision fatigue.
There’s a reason that Steve Jobs wore the same thing every day and Michael Crichton (the writer of Jurassic Park) ate the same lunch every day until he’d completed a book.
Jeff Bezos says that to do his job successfully, he needs to make only three or four key decisions a day.
For Warren Buffett, it’s only three or four decisions a year. What I’m getting at here is that being your own best boss isn’t about making more decisions – it’s about making fewer but more important ones so that you don’t burn out and can make the highest quality choices possible.
In this blog, I’ll show you a few ways you can eliminate decision fatigue by automating your day. You might be surprised by just how much freer and more energetic you feel when you get some of those choices off your plate.
Decision Fatigue Destroyer No. 1: Schedule Everything.
If something isn’t in your schedule, then it DOES NOT EXIST. Does it seem a bit lazy to you to include the same thing twice in a row? It’s not. It’s very intentional. And I’ll say it over and over repeatedly until every agent I see is living by a tightly designed schedule that maximizes their HABU (highest and best use of time).
Freedom is not deciding what you’re going to do now. Freedom is always knowing what you’re going to do and where it’s going to lead you. That’s power. 3D test everything in my schedule. Do I Do It? Do I Delegate It? Do I Dump It?
Decision Fatigue Destroyer No. 2: Morning & Night Routines.
Another thing you’ll hear me talk about over and over. Your mindset is the most important thing you have going for you. It’s more important than the money in your bank or the people you know, because with the right mindset all the rest will come.
And your mindset begins in the morning. And your morning starts the night before. So, you better have your morning and night routines locked in. Start by going to sleep at the same time every night and waking up at the same time every day.
Lay your clothes out the night before and wake up knowing exactly what you’ll do first. Don’t just say, “I’m going to exercise, meditate, and eat breakfast.” Which one are you going to do first, second, and third? What kind of exercises are you going to do? Where and for how long are you going to meditate? What are you going to eat for breakfast?
Will you have the same thing tomorrow? How about on Sunday? When are you going to shop for it?
It is critical that you take the time to consider these choices now and then turn them into a routine. Otherwise, you’ll have to make these decisions every morning and every night. You’ll wake up indecisive, go to sleep feeling more drained than before, and won’t rest nearly as well. If you don’t have your routines locked down, you’re bleeding unnecessary energy.
Decision Fatigue Destroyer No. 3: SOPs for Everything.
Say it with me… Standard Operating Procedures… Those three words are going to save your sanity and your business as you begin to scale. That’s because they’re all about conquering decision fatigue.
As I’m sure you already know, an SOP is a documented step-by-step breakdown of some task or action in your business – how to do a listing presentation or what and when to give client appreciation gifts, for example. Having ANY SOP is tremendously helpful, but the true power happens when you begin to stack SOPs and create systems to manage your systems.
One of my coaching clients got serious about SOPs when she got serious about hitting 200+ listings taken in a single year. She knew that if she and her team were going to hit a number that ambitious, they couldn’t be juggling different aspects of so many transactions in their minds. Every email had to come from a proven template, every listing presentation had to be uniform and rock solid, and every team member needed to have their exact jobs written out so clearly that anyone could follow them.
She created SOPs for EVERYTHING and even wrote SOPs for how to create new SOPs. Now, the team is so systematized that she could pass you over all the documents and you could run her team for her.
Decision Fatigue Destroyer No. 4: Mastermind Groups & Guidance.
Most of this article is talking about how to make fewer decisions by not making the mundane decisions repeatedly daily – because it’s exhausting and unproductive.
But there’s another type of decision fatigue that comes from simply not knowing what to do. I’m seeing agents out there who wake up every day and decide to run plays that aren’t working just because they can’t decide what else they’re going to do or how to start. They don’t have a plan and they don’t have support.
When you have an important decision to make that’s draining your energy, you shouldn’t make them alone.
Napoleon Hill said that having a mastermind group was the most undervalued and important principle of success because multiple minds working together are infinitely more powerful than one working alone.
So, if you’re not going to hire a coach (which you should), you need to find a community of like-minded, dedicated agents to help you brainstorm your problems and hold you accountable. Can you think of a place to find people like that? I can.
Strength and courage,
Wade
