Pre-deciding is the key to success.

Decision fatigue is real. It means that the quality of our decisions deteriorates as the days go by. We make better decisions in the morning when we’re rested… but by the end of the day we make worse decisions. So the key is to make most important decisions in the morning… and to reduce the number of decisions we make every day - and that’s where the concept of “pre-deciding” comes into play:

Pre-decide means create a “policy”.

If you find yourself facing the same problem over and over… and each time deciding how to deal with it - it’s time to create a “policy” so that you decide once and can keep applying the same decision again and again… without thinking to much about it.

Here are some examples of my “policies”:

• I’ve pre-decided not to accept any investment offers in Nozbe - so each time I’m contacted by an investor, I just refer them kindly to the same blog post.
• I’ve pre-decided when I’ve got my calendar open to talk to people - so when they ask and I’m interested, I send them the link to my “calendly” with my pre-decided time slots. They can then choose the time frame that best works for them. There’s no back-and-forth about setting up time to talk. I’ve explained this in my blog post about emailing like texting.
• I’ve set up automations for journaling - I always answer the same set of questions which lowers barriers of entry for me - and finally helped me be consistent with journaling and as a result I’m having more productive days.

I’ve made many more mini-policies like that. I hope these help you figure out yours.

Policies can be changed - but do that consciously!

It’s OK to change your mind! If you see that your policy is no longer relevant for you, schedule a “decision-taking” moment and revise your decisions. But do that consciously! I do that usually on Fridays when I’m doing my weekly review.