Too Many Decisions? Plot a course.

Our brains are on overload from sorting through the information that comes at us each day. Research has demonstrated that for every decision we make, our ability to make subsequent decisions is decreased. This means that spending energy thinking about what to have for breakfast actually impacts your ability to perform.

One of the ways I coach people on how to get a handle on this, is to pare down the number of decisions in a day by setting up simple systems.
With that in mind, here are 5 simple ways to reduce the number of decisions in your day.
1. Turn off your notifications – Email, Twitter, Facebook, GooglePlus and virtually every App on our phone is set up to notify us of something we probably don’t need to know in that moment. If you keep these notifications on, you are essentially saying that ANYONE can interrupt you whenever they want to tell you something that may or may not be helpful. Responding to notifications means that you value your own time less than getting a Like on Facebook. (tweetable)
2. Get something done BEFORE you check in – Pick one project, just one thing that you will work on for 40 minutes in the morning before you check email or social networks. I actually recommend more, but start with 1 for 40 minutes. It will change your life.
3. Pick the one thing before you go to bed – The one project I just mentioned, figure it out before you go to bed and write it down.
4. Setup is key – Your inbox should serve you. Spending 10-15 minutes setting up your email client to serve up emails to you the way that YOU want them is worth dozens of hours of lost time. Use filters to make decisions for you about which emails should go where. Pick 5 people from whom you receive regular, important emails and create folders and filters so that you can get to their information quickly.
5. One Blank Page – Ideas and random thoughts can be distracting too. Much like that little red notification circle, you can feel compelled to respond to every idea or thought that comes into your head. If you do, you have to stop what you’re doing and start something new. Start your day with a blank piece of paper and a pen, to quickly jot down random thoughts and ideas so that you can stay focused on your work. You can’t turn off your brain, but you can relax and stay focused knowing that you’ve captured it for later.
Like this helpful info from Rob Hatch? Read the rest of this post at his site.