Everything important should be decision-less. At first this concept might seem psycho or confused, but it’s the most important key to success. A lot of us assume that our decision making energy should be spent in full on things we deem important, or vital to a life well lived, but very few of us ever get specific about what that means. Does taking 25 minutes to decide what entrée you want at the restaurant really enrich the experience? Does carefully curating your attire each morning really help you win the day? Does deciding what emails are important as we check our inbox 37 times a day makes us more productive?
It really doesn’t take much effort to break the spell for a few minutes. I think most of us can sense we use subtle tricks to protect ourselves from acknowledging we waste time on stupid shit. Since we feel over-worked and tired we must be working hard. Of course that’s the whole point. Of course we’re working hard, of course we’re busy. Does being preoccupied mean we’re being productive? Probably not. More importantly, when you imagine your best life, whatever that means for you, are you always “busy” or do you have systems and rules in place so that you, almost effortlessly, hit your targets without the depression and joint pain?
Returning to the opening sentence, at a glance it seems extreme. Truthfully, it is a little bit extreme. Sometimes when I hit up a café with the people I wanna spend time with, I wanna peruse the menu and find the perfect drink for the occasion. When I say “decision-less” I mean that energy allocation on things you do frequently, things that you love and things that are “important,” should never be a surprise. If you know you need to respond to an important email by noon on Thursday, that doesn’t mean looking at the promotional offers at Kohl’s while you’re at it. Most of us have coffee and maybe a bite to eat every morning and know that our energy and mood for the rest of the day (or several) depend on that nutrition. Why would you want to leave your energy and mood management to the whim and groggy decision-making of a moment on any day, not just the day of the big presentation?
I wanna spend a moment on luck because I think it’s widely abused as a scapegoat to explain our unhappiness. Every successful person that I’ve studied or met, usually appreciates the role of luck, but they also define it differently than most people. Successful people think about luck as something you create or find, something you position yourself to receive. You can’t expect opportunity to fall out of a helicopter above your apartment and strike you while you sleep, while you do the same routine that’s gotten you nowhere for the past 5 years. Speaking from personal experience here. I’m not wagging the finger, I’m speaking authoritatively because we all do this, even successful people. The difference between that friend making 90k a year straight out of college and the ones flippin’ burgers isn’t having white, money savvy parents. Of course it helps, but the difference isn’t where they get their haircut, being taller than you, or even necessarily luck. More than likely that person has 1 or a few habits they do perhaps without even knowing it, that in spite of their gaming addiction and waking up at 12 everyday, slowly overtime lets them trend towards better. Whenever I think nothing will do the trick in my life, I remember even the most consistent titans-people like Warren Buffet or those we imagine to be locked in at all times, often bring up their bad habits and mid-day Dr. Pepper (or 3). It’s not about perfection and overachievement, it’s about habits and systems.
It’s easy to think about things in terms of money, because it’s quantitative and the math is all right there in front of you. If you want to add a $20/m subscription to x service you love on a budget, instead of frantically saving 15 dollars here and there and being surprised by the bill, you could automatically have 5 dollars removed every week that goes directly to an account which funds this subscription. It could be so perfect that even though times are hard you never see the money come out or the bill. Like magic, it just consistently happens. Our parents and forefathers did not have access to the absolutely insane leverage and automation tools we have today. While they probably had fewer headaches from fewer inputs and things to track they also didn’t have the ability to setup systems like magic. What if instead of hanging out with your aunt someday, you budgeted your time and planned around a 2 hour meetup every other week on Wednesdays for lunch? By removing the decision, things are no longer left up to chance or OCD time management. When things are automatic, instead of finding the time the appointment finds you when you have that free period already set up.
If something is important to you it gets put on the calendar and included in any time and money management systems in advance so that it’s never an issue. Of course there can still be emergency situations but you’ll get better and better at planning for and putting out fires so that you can spend more time on what you love and less on what drags you down.
I encourage you to identify one thing important to you and automate/build it into your schedule today and post it in the comments below. Remember time waits for no one, so don’t leave the planning to “someday” do it asap. I’ve learned that not sucking your thumb is one of the fastest ways to become happier and more successful.
Always keep improving,
FourthEye author
Orion A. Webster
FourthEye 
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