The miracle of micro decisions

When was the last time you made a decision???

You may not realise it but you’re making decisions all the time.?

There are the “fully aware big ones” that you may agonise over or talk through with people before picking a path.??

But almost every hour we’re awake there are micro-decisions and most of the time we’re not even aware we’re making them.? Almost every hour these inflection points offer us an opportunity to choose a pathway. Most of the time we don't even see the signpost, yet the consequences for us can have a huge bearing on our energy and productivity.

How come we miss the signs?

You have to thank your miracle brain for this. Try this example. Imagine your routine trip in a car to your nearest supermarket. Let's say it takes you ten minutes. Now imagine how many road signs and advisory notices you passed along the way. Pull up in the car park and tell me in detail, sequence and order every single sign you passed? Want to challenge me on this? I wouldn't even challenge myself.

Yet most of us will get to the supermarket unscathed without causing disturbance to ourselves or other road users and will be the epitome of quality driving. Are the road signs irrelevant, is the white or yellow line down the middle of the road unimportant? Ever drive on a fresh piece of road where they've not painted the lines and I'm sure you've felt un-nerved. The lines are what steer us and we can get to our destination without deploying the executive function in our brains.

Cognitive misers

I love this term - I read it in John Davis' Two Awesome Hours on productivity. Your brain is geared to be a cognitive miser. It simply does not have the processing power to give every stimulus your body provides a good old think and consideration.

How it gets by is by pattern recognition and learned response. Rather than necessarily thinking things through in absolute detail your brain takes in a stimulus, maps it to a past experience and learned response and this is the cognitive miser effect - conserving brain power for the unusual or unusually taxing.

And this is where good habits and bad habits come from. In bad habits your brain may have learned in association that cake is tasty, satisfying and rewarding. Open the fridge when you're feeling a bit low and hey - solution to problem awaits. There's no space for a detailed calculation of calorific content or healthy alternatives. Without thinking, the cake (and let's make it a generous slice whilst we're at it) is gone.

Micro decisions at work

Ever have those days where you start off believing things will be different - today's the day and yet within ten minutes of Outlook starting you're already lost in emails, messages and serving other people's priorities?

Ever get to the end of the day and you need to help the kids with their homework but your brain just feels completely fried?

As I covered last week in Thriving Leader our brains aren't geared to do back to back marathons, like all things they need variation in tempo and rest. In reality your day is made up of lots of different tasks. Every time you finish a task or a meeting you really truly have a choice what you do next. Trouble is the cognitive miser effect in your brain masks the fact you have a micro decision in front of you, it recognises your usual pattern of "quick dive into Outlook" and off you go from one taxing task straight into another.

Decision points surround us.??We know about decision points as we’ve all made them at some point – to go to university, which course to study, to leave one job and move to another, to decide on our life partner, to buy our first home.?We recognise big decision points partly because almost everyone goes through these periods so they are “overt” decision points, that everyone sees and accepts. Micro-decisions are still there, they're just harder for the brain to spot - you need to train the brain to see the inflection point for it to ever make a different decision for you.

Cognitive load balancing

Different tasks we aim to tackle create different levels of mental load for us to handle and ramifications for whether we complete them well or not.??Meetings we chair demand that we honour the purpose of the meeting but also handle all the complex human interactions.??That appraisal we’re about to work on with a key staff member will have a profound effect on their commitment, motivation and willingness to contribute to your goals so whilst it’s possible to sail in and try to wing your way through the meeting, the potential consequences and cost of repairing a broken relationship outweighs the preparation time.??Even a quick delve into your inbox requires comprehension, commitment of facts to memory, evaluation and formulation of responses.

The historic response by productivity gurus has been to maximise our utilisation time, make every second count – yet this logic tries to equate us with mechanical beings that we are not.??The Centre for Mental Health estimated, stress at work to cost the UK economy ￡35 billion. [1]???That’s right.?Billion.??Enough to build over 65 new hospitals.?A staggering sum of money.??It’s a stark reminder that mental muscles can become overloaded and break.

Every runner knows stamina can be built but biomechanics will influence and constrain that growth.??This is where productivity advice that attempts to equate us with machine logic is destined to fail and often at great cost.??As beings with a heart and a pulse what we need to recognise is that the key to sustaining our energy levels throughout the day is to produce rhythm – using the concept of a pulse to shift up into brain taxing tasks and then down into recovery time.?Recognising that we can aim to construct our days in advance to achieve a rhythm of high intensity and lower intensity tasks but also to take advantage of wise choices in micro decisions that happen throughout the day.

To change the decision you need to be able to see the decision

Automatic default choices happily prevent us from the pain of self-reflection and awareness.?We conspire with ourselves to just go with the flow and ignore the micro decision choices that we face that could have a positive bearing on our energy levels throughout the day.

Let’s illustrate.?At some point this week you’ll have a meeting that gets cancelled on you or finishes short.??This is a change to your day and you are presented with a decision point as to how to use or handle the additional time you’ve been given.

Your default setting might be, I am always behind on my inbox so I will use the spare ten minutes before my next meeting trying to kill some the unread emails.?During which you stumble on an email from your boss asking your opinion on a key issue one minute before you walk into your next call.??You go into the next meeting persuading your brain to park the “boss issue” and concentrate on matters in the new meeting.

If you were able to make this a conscious decision it might be, that was a tricky meeting, things got a bit agitated and though we got to an answer it was a taxing encounter.??I have ten minutes before my next meeting where I want to perform at my best, to be energised, emotionally calm and free from what has just happened.?

The choice of how to spend those ten minutes is yours.??The cognitive miser tendency means we will often not even see the decision point ahead of us but sail straight into a default task without considering its impact on the rest of what is ahead of us. More often than not this means stacking brain taxing activity upon brain taxing activity and whilst this fits the pattern of many productivity texts, you're kidding yourself because your brain's sharpness is reducing all the time - you're present, but not present.

So here's three things to try.

-???????Before you accept meetings in your diary.??Consider grading its load-level – high for something taxing or brand new where you’ll really need to give it your fullest attention and low for meetings that feel more routine or even create positive feelings such as a team get together.??Have a notional maximum number of high-load meetings you’ll take in a day and place them apart from each other or at times of the day you know your brain is at its most active. For me crafting a pitch deck, handling a negotiation, coaching, chairing a meeting are all types of activities where I'm calling on lots of executive function - I'd be aiming consciously not to stack these activities next to each other if I could avoid it.

-???????Build the firebreaks.???Particularly if you have help with your diary add time on to the end of high-load meetings and encounters for recovery so you’re not bounced from a frustrating encounter with a supplier into taking that frustration into an appraisal and coaching meeting with one of your most valued team members. But you need to train your brain when the meeting ends to recognise the inflection point and bring to consciousness the decision as to what you do next - dive into emails (not refreshing) go get some water and air (more refreshing).

-???????Change the default pattern ??We all have meetings that get suddenly cancelled or finish earlier than expected so instead of defaulting to your cognitive miser setting, decide in advance how you’ll break the cycle.??For example make a mental commitment if my meeting finishes early I will stand up, walk off, get some water, stretch legs, not touch a computer or screen, do some breathing exercises.??Although it might seem like diving into the inbox is the efficient thing to do, your mind will repay the refresh time with greater productivity in your next task.

New rituals are what creates the habits your brain craves to make life easier for itself.

When THIS happens I will do THIS

So do yourself a huge favour.??Take a moment to look at the default answers to decisions points that really aren’t helping you and make a statement and a new ritual.??Practice it regularly a few times even if that means writing it on a wall in front of you.?The key phrase is “when this happens I will do this”.??You need the trigger as well as the action.??Make this your new ritual and before long ritual becomes a habit and your brain will take the easier and now better route for you.

Have a great a productive week. I'm nearly there with crafting Season 2 of Thriving Leader all about harnessing your creative energy. Until then you can catch all my resources for free and even listen to podcast versions over at www.theenergyleader.com

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[1] Mental health at work: The business costs ten years on | Centre for Mental Health

[2] Josh David PHD, Two Awesome Hours