Last week I was watching an episode of a TV show, the Big Bang Theory.
I’m not sure if you’re familiar with that show but no matter, you don’t need to know what it’s about to get what I’m leading to here…
In this particular episode, one of the main characters, Sheldon Cooper, explained how his life was so much better now that he’s letting the dice make all his trivial decisions for him.
You see, whenever he needed to make a trivial decision such as what to eat for breakfast, he’d simply roll a pair of dice and let them choose. For example, an odd total number rolled meant he ate toast for breakfast while an even number would mean he’d eat oats. (That’s the general gist of it, anyway).
Or an odd number meant ‘yes’ while an even number meant ‘no’.
By doing this, he said he was able to free up his mind to focus on the more important things he needed to think about. Things like quantum physics, to put it in the simplest words.
This idea Sheldon had isn’t so silly. It’s something I do myself – sort of – and it does make life much simpler.
Okay, so I don’t have a die that I roll to make my decisions. But I do make an effort to make a lot of decisions in advance and to systemise tasks as much as possible, within my business and also my home life.
This way, I don’t need to spend time thinking about minor decisions, especially when I’m super crazy busy. The decisions have already been made some time ago.
Let me give you an example…
By having a system in place for processing new client orders you decide how you’re going to run this process – what needs to be done and in what order. You set up and document the system.
Then each time you receive a new order you just follow that system. There’s no need to spend time thinking about what needs to be done and how to do it.
When I create videos, for example, I have a set system that is followed. My team and I don’t need to spend time each time we record a new video in deciding what format to produce the video in or what to use as the introduction or close or what music is included.
Even when it comes to writing eBooks, we have a specific format and system and simply follow that. Many of the decisions are therefore already made for us.
Sure, you can change parts of the system as needed and where improvements can be made. It’s a good idea to test different elements too, so you’re always striving to do things better. Your templates and systems don’t need to be set in stone.
I encourage you to set aside a little time each week – or at least each fortnight – to allocate to making decisions once and then creating effective systems within your business.
You’re sure to find this helps things run smoother along with freeing up your mind the rest of the time so you can focus on the big picture of your business.
