Simple Decisions

Check out my book – Attention! The Power of Simple Decisions in a Distracted World.

I coach business leaders and executives helping them gain clarity, focus, and make better decisions. You can schedule a Discovery Call to learn more about it here.

Click here to subscribe to the Simple Decisions series.

Transcript

Hey there, it’s Rob hatch. And this is simple decisions. One of the things that I like to do is decide before I have to, what I mean by that is if I enter a circumstance or a situation and I haven’t made decisions ahead of time, then I’m more likely to make poor decisions. or be caught flatfooted, so to speak, not knowing exactly what I wanna do.

I’m gonna be swayed more easily. A perfect example of this is if I go to the grocery store and I don’t have a list, I’m trying to maybe think about the things that I want as I’m going in, but, you know, I don’t really have not prepared in any way. Maybe I’m a little hungry, I’m gonna spend more money. I’m going to.

Bad choices. And I’m probably gonna forget something there’s actually research that shows that this is the case, that the opposite is true. If you make a list, if you decide ahead of time, what it is that you need, and you have a list and you go into the store with that list, you’re less likely to forget what it was.

You’re gonna stick to the list and you, and, and in the end you actually spend less money because you’ve decided what it is that you’re going shopping for. super helpful to have that. So decide ahead of time. Decide before you have to is useful in a number of different circumstances. For me, one of the ways that I use it every single day is near the end of my day.

I’ll spend 10 or 15 minutes plotting out what I’m gonna work on. First thing, the next. I look at my calendar, review everything. And I look at the things that I need to prioritize for that day. What projects I need to work on. If there’s any deliverables for clients or anything like that I choose usually to block off a couple of hours and I have three things that I want to work on or three blocks of time, 3 45 minute blocks of time.

So I’m deciding what it is that I’m going to work on. And by having made that decision. When I enter my Workday, things just flow so much easier. It’s the decisions already made. I don’t have to wonder, I don’t have to think about in that moment and, and lose any energy. I can just enter the day and start working on the things that I know that I’ve already decided are the most important things.

So that’s. Find ways to decide before you have to, maybe you, another example might be preparing for an interview or you’ve, you’ve already made decisions about how you’re going to respond to certain questions. You can’t anticipate all the questions, but there’s a good number of them that you can so decide before you have to, how you might respond.

Any part of preparing is another way to decide before you have to, so you’re not caught off guard. You’ve decided how you wanna respond, what you wanna say, what you want to do that. The power of making that simple decision ahead of time. So that in the moment, you know exactly what you need to do, I’m Rob hatch, and this has been simple decisions.

Check out my book – Attention! The Power of Simple Decisions in a Distracted World.

I coach business leaders and executives helping them gain clarity, focus, and make better decisions. You can schedule a Discovery Call to learn more about it here.

Click here to subscribe to the Simple Decisions series.

Transcript

Hey, there’s Rob Hatch. And this is simple decisions. One of the things that helps keep me focused, one of the tools that I use every single day is something called action stacks. Action stacks are simple, repeatable plans or process something that you do every day, every week, every month, sometimes every year, if there’s something that you do on a repeated basis, it benefit.

you to have a simple process written out for all the steps. You can write it, you can keep it an Evernote or some other app. I like to keep it on Google. Keep what it does is it keeps me focused on whatever it is that I’m working on so that I can go through. And even if I get interrupted, I know exactly where I left off, which I’ll get to in a second.

also, it saves a lot of brain power. I don’t want to have to be trying to remember all the steps that I usually go through. Anytime I’m setting up a webinar or sending out a, an email from, to to our newsletter list. There are certain steps that we have to go through every single time. And yeah, I can, I can remember them.

It uses a ma you know, an element of brain power that is just not necessary when I can just pull up and just follow along. Besides the fact I’m gonna get distracted along the way someone’s gonna interrupt me or in my case, I might start out with step one, step two, step seven. Oh, crap. Step three, step four, step eight.

Oh, right. Oh, wait, what was that? Where was I? Step four, five step five steps. You know, so I’m gonna be all over the place jumping around and yeah, I might get through it reasonably successfully, but why would I. Anytime wondering or worrying if I got every step done and these action stacks can be adjusted along the way, if you, if a new piece of software gets added to the, to the mix, you could just add something in.

So in a previous video I talked about last night guy and tomorrow guy tomorrow, Rob loves to have things ready. I love waking up and having the things that I need ready to. You know, simple things. I like having my coffee made. I like having my breakfast prepared or at least the, the things that I need to, to prepare my breakfast are all available and ready.

I like having the stuff that I need to do or workout or clothes laid out, or I like having a clean slate to start from on my computer, having every tab closed. And of course, having my laptop charged. , these are all things that I love to have set up. So the night before I have a little reminder, and this is my action stack for doing that.

And one of the things that I, I use Google keep right here. Most of what we do is inside. What do I do is inside Google and this syncs to my calendar, or I can put a notification on my calendar to remind myself, so every night around eight o’clock I get a message or reminder about tomorrow. . So I pull up this little list and I go through it and, you know, little simple things.

I make sure my breakfast is prepared. My coffee, all the things I just mentioned, they’re all done. And as you can see, one of the things I love about Google keep is as I check them off, it drops them all to the bottom and crosses them out. So I know exactly where I left off. I know that I’ve done every single one as I check it.

And because it’s a repeat. System something that I need to do again the next night. And the next night is a great thing right here where I can uncheck all items. And the action stack is restored and ready for the next day. So that’s one, but it’s not just about tomorrow guy. Like I mentioned before, there’s, there’s setting up webinars or in our case, we have a master.

Group and we use zoom and we schedule that, and that has to be added to calendars there’s pieces of software involved to make sure everything gets connected. Excuse me. So I have this checklist, this checklist right here, this action stack is. To keep me on track and make sure that I get through all the steps.

Again, I built the meeting in zoom. I add it to the calendars. I open the piece of software, I check and make sure everything’s cleared out. I create a new event there and make sure it’s synced up with that piece of software. I take the registration link and I open our CRM and on and on I go and as I’m going along, I check off all the items and once I’m done.

Uncheck all items. As I mentioned, this keeps me on track. It saves a lot of brain power in trying to remember. I don’t know why I would try to remember all these steps when I don’t have to. I have, I can have them all laid out in front of me. They support me to get things done more quickly to help me stay focused.

And again, if there’s an interruption, if someone needs me, if I have to take a phone call and I’m in the middle of this process, I. Pick up right where I left off. I know where I was because I’m going through and checking off these items as I’m doing it. It’s really that simple. That’s it. Action stacks.

Give it a try, pick something, try the, try it with last night tomorrow guy, try it with something that you do on a repeatable basis, something you do every week, every month, every year. Even I have action stacks for, you know, once a. Because boy, in 30 days, time, I’m gonna forget one or two of the steps or which order they need to be done in.

So that’s it. Give it a try, take one of the things that you do on a regular basis and turn it into an action stack and see how well it works for you. I’m Rob hatch, and this has been simple decisions.