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On November 27, I was honoured to hear Neil Pasricha, author and blogger of 1000 Awesome Things, at the PEO Executive Retreat. He touched on so many great topics, but here I'm going to focus on his take on Decisions.

How many decisions do you make before you even get out of bed? If you're like me, that number is somewhere around 10-20. How many of them matter?

All Our Decisions

"What's for breakfast? What should I wear today? Did I really need those shoes? Should I subscribe to Helen's newsletter? I know I won't read it, but she keeps asking." How much energy do you put into making these decisions, or decisions similar to these? What would it take for you to plan ahead so that these decisions don't take up real estate in your mind?

I know that Neil Pasricha said what a lot of likely already know intrinsically. We've heard of Pareto's 80/20 in terms of putting most of our time, energy, resources into the 20% that give us 80% of our ROI. We've even seen Eisenhower's Important versus Urgent chart, where all tasks can be classified as important or not and urgent or not. The thing is, we probably haven't put these in the context of how we make decisions. Neil did a great job of that.

The Real Decisions

I grabbed this snapshot from the presentation screen. I really thought it was so clear. Now, we didn't get examples of each because we all have different priorities, but I've tried to include some examples for each section, just to help you see it more clearly. Essentially, Neil says:

Automate: things that are not important and take little time e.g. send invoices (well, these are still important), but I'd say automate anything that you can.
Effectuate (just do): things that are important and yet take little time e.g. pick up the kids from school (this was Neil's example), take a shower.
Regulate (schedule): things that are not important and yet are time consuming e.g. cleaning the kitchen, checking work e-mails, grocery shopping.
Debate (actually put energy): things that are important and time consuming e.g. Do this $10MM merger or no? How do I finance my children's education?

I'm sure a lot of us work with lists, but if you could put some of your tasks into these categories and give them only the time and energy required, wouldn't you have more energy for the important decisions? What decisions can you already start applying this to?

What are the Big Decisions in Your Business?

Sometimes you just need to hear your thoughts out loud. What decisions are constantly on your mind? Big or small, nothing should be on your mind that long. Let's get you to make those decisions. More often than not, it's less complicated that we think. Book A Call Today.

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Crystal-Marie Sealy, MBA, is a business strategy consultant focused on pricing, social media and more, for established small businesses, entrepreneurs and executives. President, founder of Successiory and the signature E.A.S.Y. Strategy process, Crystal-Marie works with professionals who want to build sustainable business models and create sustainable client community on social media. She also delivers workshops and speaks at conferences on business strategy for social media. Connect with her at www.successiory.ca

This blog post was adapted and shared in the LinkedIn Pulse Series, #ProductivityHacks, where professionals share their secrets to being more productive. Read the LinkedIn posts here, then write your own (use #ProductivityHacks in the body).