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Back to our regular programming! If you haven’t heard of Seth Godin, you’re in for a REAL treat with today’s post! Seth is an expert marketer, dot-com entrepreneur and an incredible author. I subscribe to his daily newsletter and highly recommend it as a great tool that gives me a daily dose of perspective and big thinking. The post I’m sharing today is from a few weeks ago but made a big impact on me.
As a type-A, highly organized and control loving person, decisions can sometimes feel paralyzing. Because, of course, we HAVE to make the right one, right? As if every decision in every situation is “mission critical” and there is only one perfect decision to make. AND, everything falls apart if we don’t make the right decision! (No pressure of course). Seth’s post is a great reminder that there are choices, and there are decisions… and they key takeaway here is that those are two different things! There are only so many hours in the day, and a finite amount of decision-making power so prioritizing where to spend that limited effort is important. I’ll let Seth take it from here…
— CHOOSE WITHOUT DECIDING —
Originally posted HERE
This or that, one or the other, it doesn’t matter.
It’s actually possible that it just doesn’t matter. A choice, but not a decision.
We have to make choices like this every single day. What color, among three colors which are just fine. Which route, between two routes within a rounding error in time taken. Which flight, which table, which person…
Choices don’t have to be decisions.
Decisions come with all sorts of overhead. We put a lot of weight on our ability to make good decisions. We switch frames, put in hard work and even involve emotional wishes about future outcomes. Decisions are fraught. That weight can pay off with a more serious approach, with more diligence, but mostly it weighs us down.
We can save a lot of time and effort by making our meaningless choices effortless. Pick the first one, or the one in alphabetical order or flip a coin. Merely have a rule and make the choice.
I’m serious. Considering ten colleges? Put your favorite five in a hat and randomly pick one. Done. Can’t decide among three candidates for a job and you can’t find a way to choose? Pick the one with the shortest first name. Why not? If you don’t have enough information to make a statistically defensible decision, merely choose.
At the end of the day, you’ll have more resources remaining for the decisions that matter.
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