16 Make Fewer Decisions
“An expert is someone who has succeeded in making decisions and judgements simpler through knowing what to pay attention to and what to ignore.”
Edward De Bono
Every time we have to make a decision, it is resolved in the courtroom of our brains. Sights, sounds and other sensory evidence are registered by the sensory circuits. Then various neurons act like the “jury”, collating and weighing up each piece of evidence. Finally a decision is made.
And as we normally have to make thousands of decisions each day, it's not surprising that we often feel mentally drained by the end of it. This is just one of the reasons why it's so important to get a good night's sleep, as it has the effect of completely recharging our brains.
The fact that every choice you make is going to use up a little bit of your energy is why a lot of successful people reduce the amount of daily decisions they have to make.
In a recent online Q&A session with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg,1 there was one question quite a few people had on their minds: why does he always wear a dark grey T-shirt?
It's not a question that's on his mind of course, because he's decided not to think about what he wears every day. Zuckerberg said “I'm not doing my job if I spend any of my energy on things that are silly or frivolous about my life.”
He's not the only one. Barack Obama is almost always seen in grey or blue ...
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