Decisions 

At work I’m trying to stay committed to “extreme decision making.” Meaning, I’m working intentionally at cutting down on the time required to make decisions, reducing the number of decisions I make through delegation, and by working at “extreme clarity.” My standard with day-to-day decisions is to decide immediately, on the spot, Yes or No, or to empower the person asking me, to decide. 

It’s  not always been that way. I can procrastinate with the best of them. I’m always getting things done, but it’s easy to delay key decisions, key planning, scheduling decisions and others. It’s easy to tell people “let me think about that” and not really mean it. 

I just made a decision yesterday about a legal and corporate level matter that sat on my desk for a year. Yes a year! I made the decision in 15 minutes. It was an important business decision in a specific geography. But the decision was much simpler than I’d made it to be for the year prior. I just had to get on with it.

I’ve just decided that I’m done with dragging my feet; period. Life is too short. Barriers must be removed. The weight of delayed decisions creates too much stress.

“YES,” NO,” & “YOU DECIDE” are the standard answers. There’s also the choice to ignore certain domains and decision areas, choosing what NOT to be involved in. This is key. Simply eliminate the responsibility for certain decisions that others can and should make themselves. We can only work so hard and so smart. Delegate and Empower people to make decisions based on established criteria. Make qualified choices to allow certain scenarios and decisions to be resolved without getting involved. When something is really wrong or really bad, and we recognize over time that it’s not being resolved, then pop in and deal with it. Create clarity, define, and move on. The goal should be to never have to go back to resolve that issue again. There’ll be a position and process to handle it.

Delaying decisions can be habitual. I am trying to remind myself to decide quickly and move on, every hour, of every day, of every week. It creates clarity. It reduces stress. It improves productivity. It sets a better tone. Indecision is a killer. Eliminate Indecision.