Make Choices that Make Life Easier

Another throwback this week, this time one from early September. Enjoy!

This weekend, we hosted a 6th?birthday party for my oldest daughter Eliot. For those that haven’t been around a 6-year old’s birthday party recently, you are missing out! The thing I still don’t understand though, is how a group of kids around that age can turn into a collective force of energy equal to that of an F3 tornado, displacing and destroying anything in their path. The screaming, yelling, playing, and laughing that goes along with it; I don’t know if any manmade structure that was built to withstand that kind of opposing force!?

?As we were preparing for this party last week, my wife and I could both tell neither of us were on our A-game. Invitations had gone out months ago, RSVPs were in, but we were running behind. We hadn’t decided on the food we wanted, decorations were still?“out for delivery”?and the house wasn’t in its most showcase-worthy state. Then Christa Haner (Wode) made a suggestion that changed our pace of preparedness. See, normally I will smoke a large brisket, pork roast, or several racks of ribs for a party like this and Christa make a bunch of sides and desserts. We were running short on time to get all of that done so she suggested we have the food catered. Similar cost, no prep-time needed on our part (outside of making the order), disposable place settings for every guest, and good food! Done! Then she suggested we have the party in our finished garage instead of in the house or the basement – less clean-up afterwards, less preparation in getting the house ready, and everyone would still be inside and dry from the inconvenient rain forecast for that day. Done!?A Costco run for beer, seltzers, wine, soda, etc. and we were ready! All that stress and drama that would have come with running behind on our prep-work melted away with some thoughtful alternatives and we had a great party!?

?In our work and in our lives, we are making thousands of decisions per?day (some psychologists believe we make over 35,000 decisions per day!). Each time we decide, we weigh alternatives and often make our choices thoughtlessly.?But with an extra second of pause, we can make decisions that help make our future lives easier and more successful.?Just like Christa suggest we cater the party instead of cook, we can adjust our choices on scheduling, time spent, and priorities for future days that allow us to reach the same (or better) outcome while reducing our stress and discomfort.?

?So, as we look at the week ahead, what decisions will we each make to have a better week? What about the month ahead and the rest of our fiscal half? My next decision, what are we going to do with all these leftovers!