Weighing Your Decisions

Every day we make thousands of decisions. Research says that we make anywhere from 33,000-35,000 decisions every day. Whether it is what we wear, what we eat, and probably some important ones dispersed throughout the day. This level of decision-making adds to the strain on our bodies, our stress levels, and our lives.

If you study some highly productive people, you find that they set many of these easy decisions on auto-pilot. For instance, wearing the same clothes each day or eating the same meals. Now that sounds boring to many. I know my wife would kill me, as she already points out when we look to eat chicken 2 nights in a row. Instead, I try to automate breakfast and lunch as much as possible. This serves 2 purposes, one I know what I'm eating when I wake up and break for lunch, and two I don't even have to think about it. The only decision I have to make is when.

Why is this so important?

If I tell you to go do a physical activity for several hours chances are your muscles are going to get tired. You are going to start to wear down. In the weightlifting world, your form is going to break down and you will risk injury. This same thing happens to our brain. When we make decisions all day long, our brain gets tired. We might even shut down or disconnect without even realizing it. Worse, we may make a decision, at a time when our brains just cannot do so.

When taking this to the financial world, automation is your friend. Set payments on auto-pilot, set budgets on auto-pilot, and set retirement savings on auto-pilot. And on and on I could go. The more we set things on auto, the less likely I am to not do that or forget to do that later on down the road.

Of course, along those lines, do not make a big decision at night after a long day of work. That includes buying habits. If you are a compulsive buyer, put the iPad/Phone/Laptop down and take a breath. Write it down and come back to that decision in the morning, when your brain is fresh and ready to properly evaluate the decision in front of you. I know this because this is a lot of times, why we used to eat out. After a long day of work, deciding what to eat was not in my brain's capacity, so the easy fallback was to go pick something up. We still do this today, but not as bad, thankfully. That is why meal planning is so important. When you come home and that decision is already made, you got this. No need to think anymore, just throw it in and go.

Use the time when you are most productive to do those things that are most important. This will help you prepare for the future and improve your decision-making overall.

Get after and get started, plan one thing now!