150 minutes a week deciding what to eat, around 50 minutes deciding what to watch on Netflix, and 90–115 minutes deciding what to wear.
Roughly 250–275 hours is what the average person routinely spends on decisions that barely matter.
Time you’re not spending on:
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Deciding what you want to dedicate your life’s work to
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Designing a life that’s aligned with your values
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Creating moments you’ll actually remember and services that make a difference
Fascinating, huh?
(Stats from How to Decide by world-class poker champion and decision-making scientist Annie Duke.)
Barack Obama famously reduced his decision time waste by wearing the same type of outfit every day.
Steve Jobs did the same.
Alex Hormozi outsources his wardrobe, food, and most non-work decisions entirely, and has been on a relentless growth trajectory for over a decade.
One example could be a coincidence.
A pattern across many high-impact leaders should make you pause.
If they needed to do it, you might benefit from it too.
Here’s the dichotomy of decision-making:
A big part of good decision frameworks is slowing down important decisions so you make better bets.
An even bigger part?
Knowing which decisions to speed up, or eliminate entirely. (So that you have time and energy for good thinking when it matters)
I never understood why people agonize over food choices so much.
In a month, you won’t remember what you ate.
Heck, my clients often can’t remember what they had for dinner last night, which is why retrospective food diaries are notoriously unreliable data.
So why spend so much time deciding something you won’t remember tomorrow? 🤔
Decisions you should NOT think long about
(Decide in advance. Or flip a coin.)
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What to eat
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What to wear
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What to watch for entertainment
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Things with mostly upside (asking someone out, making the sales ask - the worst case is “no”)
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Equally good or equally bad options (hard decisions in disguise that are actually easy)
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Two-way door decisions - easy to quit or reverse with minimal downside (Bezos' favorite)
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Choices that fail the happiness test: if this won’t matter to your happiness in a week, a month, or a year - pick anything
And then, slow down.
Slow down when the decision is truly meaningful:
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Choosing a life partner
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Committing to a new career path
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Moving countries
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Deciding which customers to serve
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Choosing who you build with, live with, dream with
Be deliberate about big decisions.
Automate the small, repeated ones.
Over to you, dear reader, what decisions can you automate today to free up mental space, energy and time for impact and meaning?
