We make thousands of decisions each day, from choosing a breakfast cereal to creating a long-term business strategy and everything in between. When we feel we have too many decisions to make, our productivity falters. Here are some tips that can help when making decisions.
Types of Decisions
Different types of decisions require a different amount of time and effort. For example, there is very little difference between chocolate and vanilla ice cream; it is a personal choice. We don’t need to – nor should we – spend hours researching and deliberating, trying to reach the ideal outcome. In addition, you can easily change the outcome. If we choose chocolate ice cream and don’t like it, we can throw it away and get vanilla with few repercussions.
On the other hand, determining the goals and objectives for your business requires more time, thought and energy because the outcome has significant long-term effects. Our choices affect our staff and clients. And it is not easy to change our minds once we have executed a course of action.
To increase your productivity and effectiveness, identify the impact and outcome of each decision. Spend more time on decisions that have longer-term effects and less time on the less significant ones.
Create Decision Guidelines
As our businesses grow, we find that we make the same decisions over and over again. Do we refund a customer’s purchase? When do we publish our newsletter? Who is responsible for buying office supplies? In these scenarios using policies can reduce the time and effort we put into making decisions.
Policies are pre-made decisions, high-level rules or guidelines to deal with specific situations. For example, in the Out of Chaos privacy policy, we state we will never sell, distribute, or share our client list. If anyone asks for our client list, our answer is “No!” every single time. It is our policy. Because policies contain pre-made decisions, you and your staff can perform tasks consistently and reduce errors, complaints, and arguments.
Off-load Decisions
You can increase your productivity if you have someone else make decisions for you. That is one of the key benefits of policies and procedures – your staff can perform tasks without your involvement. They know the response to a decision because it is in the policy. They can act appropriately because there is a procedure to guide them. Procedures are a set of actions we take to execute the decision. Creating a flowchart or list of steps to follow is extremely helpful. A well-written procedure will also include instruction on when a staff member should seek advice or a decision from the business owners. An example might be when a colleague who wants your mailing list becomes argumentative with an employee who has denied their request.
Be at Your Best When Making Decisions
Finally, to make great decisions and be productive, be your best self. Get enough sleep (sleep and productivity are highly correlated), stay hydrated, and eat well. Almost everyone we interview in our Productive People Series credits their success to including exercise in their daily routine.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed with decisions, book a consultation with the Out of Chaos team or contact us to schedule a productivity workshop.
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