ODTM — One Decision That Matters
A couple weeks ago, Micah Baldwin came into 500 Startups for a fireside chat. It wasn’t a typical session for us. He wasn’t there to teach us about marketing, user acquisition, funnels, fundraising, or any of that. Rather, he was there to share the wisdom he’s gained from the ups and downs in his life. There was a specific piece of wisdom that resonated with me so strongly that I still think about it and try to act on it daily. The concept is that you:
Focus on making ONE, impactful decision a day.
It seems like a simple concept but it’s actually really fucking hard to live by. He explained that throughout the course of the day, us humans are faced with hundreds if not thousands of decisions. For example:
- do I get up or hit “sleep” and sleep for 5 mins
- 5 mins later -> do I get up now or hit “sleep”
- do I make breakfast or skip breakfast?
- do I make coffee or grab a coffee at Starbucks on the way to work?
- what do I wear?
- what’s the temperature outside?
- since it’s 60 out, do I really need a coat?
- but what about when the temperature drops tonight?
- do I have everything I need to go to work?
That’s just in the first 30 minutes of your day! Making decisions puts strain on your brain because you’re intensely calculating the pros and cons of each option. It can stress you out, it can distract you, and it can exhaust you. The funniest thing about the aforementioned decisions is that none of them really make a difference in how your day will be.
So, instead of worrying about making pointless decisions, focus on making ONE decision that matters which will make a real impact on what you’re aiming to achieve. For entrepreneurs, this means spending more time on making one important decision that will ultimately help grow your business.
E.g. — instead of taking an hour of your day to talk on the phone with vendors and potential “partners” (for most startups, partnerships are shiny objects that never pan out) — spend that hour getting feedback from your users before you make the decision to build feature X that will take your team 2 weeks to develop. Building feature X that will take 2 weeks is an enormous decision yet many of us spend just as much time on making that decision as we do on what we’re wearing that morning (I’ve been guilty of this as well).
Another prime example is texting or emailing. We spend hours each day revising emails and texts. Whether it’s to a potential business partner or to a girl you’re interested in going on a date with. I’ve been guilty of literally rewriting an email 10 times before sending it because I didn’t like one sentence. Fuck all that. In the grand scheme of things — the receiver (said potential partner or potential girlfriend) is not even going to notice the minor adjustment you made to your message so why bother wasting energy on it!
So, I’m doing my best to stop wasting time on making pointless decisions. I normally revise my posts pretty thoroughly but this one, I’m only going to give it a brief pass.
There’s a reason Mark Zuckerberg, Barack Obama, and Jack Dorsey wear the same outfit to work everyday (because that’s one less decision for people who have to make really, really important decisions every day).
There’s a reason Drake wrote the song Energy in which he talks about people trying to drain his energy (old friends, girls, rappers, etc). Same concept applied differently. Decisions be takin your energy!!!
