Most of your decisions aren’t new. They’re repeats.
In last week’s newsletter, I covered two of the Five Forces of Decisions: Direction and Emotion. Today, we’re diving into the third: Repetition.
Repetition:
We make tens of thousands of decisions every day, but most are repeat decisions: ones we make all the time.
Improving how we handle these repeat decisions can then dramatically improve our lives.
Luckily, we have two powerful tools to do exactly that: defaults and algorithms.
Tool 1: Defaults
When iOS 14.5 was rolling out, the marketing and advertising worlds were in a panic. Suddenly, iPhone apps would be required to ask users whether they wanted to share tracking data or “ask app not to track.”
Before the change, tracking was on by default and only 25 percent of people opted out. After, only 25 percent opted in.
Same decision. Different default. Completely different outcome.
This is called choice architecture. The way choices are presented influences what we choose.
Governments, researchers, and app publishers constantly study this. But you can be the choice architect in your life.
The trick is simple: make the decisions you want easier to make.
If you know you will scroll your phone in bed, plug it in across the room before you go to sleep. Now you have removed the decision entirely.
At work, this can look like:
Closing your 80 tabs at the end of the day so you start fresh
Leaving a note on your desk with tomorrow’s priorities
Starting the day with a quick standup to unblock your team
There are countless ways to design your environment so the right decision is the default.
Make the right decision, the easy one.
The second tool for managing repetition is creating algorithms.
Tool 2: Algorithms, Rules, and Templates
In Managerial Decision Making, one of my favorite classes at Wharton, we did an activity where we had to assign a course score out of 100 to fake students based on three known grades and a mysterious fourth. Since we didn’t know the weighting or the fourth score, I built a simple formula using what we did know and applied it across all students. It took less than ten minutes.
The next day, my answers were the closest to the actual scores, and I won $5. I was embarrassed to explain my approach. It felt a little weird.
But it was exactly right.
By using a formula, I removed subjectivity. I made the same type of decision the same way every time. Since the formula was reasonable, my overall error was low.
That lesson stuck.
Creating algorithms and rules reduces subjectivity and decision fatigue. Instead of rethinking the same decision over and over, you decide once and reuse it.
In my role running performance marketing campaigns, we created clear “decision rules.”
If too many of a partner’s install traffic registers for the app, we would know to be wary of fraud. We weren’t judging the partner based on our shared history or swayed by a recent call. We had a clear-cut number that, if violated, was a red flag. We created the rule because we would need to make that decision multiple times per week. Having a default decision meant we could breeze through it and free some bandwidth to tackle the real issues.
Other jobs can make similar rules. A designer, for instance, may have an objective rubric for evaluating designs, a process for generating new concepts, or a template for repeated projects. An accountant may create macros in Excel to flag different transactions for additional review.
Similarly, Meghan Hardy, a fractional marketing leader and author of the newsletter Fractional Friday, shared that one of the most impactful decisions she made was “productizing” her services. She was no longer creating custom proposals for every client, which drained her time. She presented tiers of options that she didn’t have to change on a per-client basis.
Formulas and rules are just as useful outside of work.
When my daughter transitioned from three naps to two, we set a rule: if she woke up before 2:50 p.m. from her second nap, it was a three-nap day. Otherwise, it was a two-nap day.
Even small rules like this reduce mental load when you are exhausted.
Other examples:
Fridays are pizza night
Don’t run if you slept less than six hours
On Wednesdays, you wear pink
These decisions may seem small, but they add up.
If you’ll face the decision repeatedly, don’t decide it repeatedly.
Adjusting your defaults and creating algorithms and rules can simplify your life and reduce your mental load. Make the best option the easiest one and take repeated decisions off your plate.
Save your brain for the decisions that actually matter.
