☄️ High Output Decision-Making - Eliminate Low Stakes Decisions (2/3)

Whether you realize it or not, you're sabotaging your most important decisions by exhausting your mental bandwidth on choices that don't matter.

In Part 1 of High Output Decision-Making, we explored how every choice you make draws from the same limited mental reservoir. And how decision fatigue can sabotage your judgment when it matters most.

Your decision-making ability decreases with each decision you make, and research shows we make thousands of decisions per day. But most of these are trivial decisions: what to wear, what to eat, etc.

However small, each of these micro-decisions drains your mental bandwidth.

To protect your mental bandwidth — for the things that actually matter — systematically delegate or eliminate as many of these low-stakes decisions as possible.

Assessing Decision Types: Big vs. Small, One-Way vs. Two-Way

Not all decisions deserve equal attention. Jeff Bezos famously categorizes decisions as either one-way doors (irreversible) or two-way doors (reversible). One-way door decisions deserve deep thought, while two-way doors should be made quickly or delegated.

This aligns perfectly with David Allen’s Getting Things Done framework, where triage is built into the process:

• If a task takes less than 2 minutes, do it immediately.

• If not, schedule or delegate it.

This simple assessment dramatically reduces decision overhead by quickly filtering out and minimizing low-impact choices.

The Batch-Delegate-Automate Framework

High-output leaders systematize their approach to routine choices through a three-step process:

First, batch similar tasks and decisions together. Jack Dorsey used "themed day” to group similar work — Mondays for management, Tuesdays for product, etc. This approach helped him run multiple companies simultaneously.

Second, delegate decisions that don't need your unique perspective. This includes things like vendor screening, basic data analysis, and scheduling. You can even delegate to “AI teammates.” For example, Workmate can take on the seemingly simple yet draining task of scheduling.

Third, automate the routine. There are tasks in every workflow that can be automated with technology and systems. For example, spending a bit of time to set up email filters can eliminate hundreds of distracting daily micro-decisions in your inbox.

Smart Defaults and Routines

While frameworks help systematize routine decisions, you can go further by eliminating entire categories of choices through smart defaults.

Tobi Lütke, CEO of Shopify, implemented an extreme calendar default system he calls "meeting reset." He cleared his entire calendar and established a rule that meeting requests must explain why the meeting can't be handled via email, chat, or another asynchronous method.

This default eliminated hundreds of weekly micro-decisions about which meetings to accept, decline, or reschedule.

By reversing the default from "accept unless there's a reason to decline" to "decline unless there's a compelling reason to accept," he reclaimed hours of time and mental bandwidth daily.

Reed Hastings, Netflix CEO, structures his entire week around pre-scheduled "think days" where no meetings are permitted, eliminating the constant decisions about when to do deep work.

The key is to identify recurring decision points and create default options that don't require active deliberation — eliminating the need to make a decision. High-output performers create these guardrails for everything from lunch choices to meeting lengths.

Three Frameworks That Help

Even after optimizing your systems, you'll still face decisions that require your judgment. For these situations, the right mental models can act as decision accelerators:

1. The Hell Yeah or No Filter: Derek Sivers' approach to decisions is a simple binary or immediate "Hell Yeah!" or "No." He proposes that if your gut response isn't "Hell yeah!" to an opportunity, meeting, or request, automatically reject it without further deliberation. This instantly removes hundreds of mental calculations while ensuring you have full bandwidth for the truly needle-moving opportunities.

2. The $5,000/Hour Filter: Naval Ravikant set an aspirational hourly rate of $5,000 even before he had wealth. For any task, ask: "If I value my time at $5,000/hour, should I do this myself?" If not, outsource it or eliminate it entirely. This creates a clear threshold that instantly categorizes low-value activities.

3. The Single-Tasking Approach: Research shows that task-switching consumes up to 40% of productive time. Decide once what you'll work on for the next 90 minutes, then eliminate all "should I be doing this other thing instead" decisions during that time. This removes hundreds of micro-decisions about where to direct your attention.

Implementation Roadmap: The Decision Detox

Here's exactly how to implement your decision minimization system:

1. Conduct a Decision Audit: For one full day, track every decision you make in a simple two-column spreadsheet. Column one: the decision itself. Column two: approximate time spent on it. Be specific — note even small decisions like which email to open first or whether to take a break. At day's end, highlight decisions that took more than 2 minutes but created minimal value.

2. Create Elimination Priorities: Categorize your decisions by frequency (daily, weekly, monthly) and cognitive load (rough estimate of the mental energy they consume H/M/L). Target high-frequency, high-load decisions first. For each, determine whether it can be batched, delegated, automated, or standardized with a default rule.

3. Assess Mental Energy Gains: Don't just measure time saved — monitor how your mental clarity improves. After implementing your system, check in at the end of each day to see how you feel. Did you feel less mentally drained? Did you make better choices? This feedback loop helps you continually refine which decisions to optimize next.

Bottom Line

To achieve high-output work, you must protect your mental bandwidth.

Every trivial decision you systematize is cognitive energy that can be allocated to the decisions that matter most.

Next week in Part 3, we'll focus on frameworks for making better high-stakes decisions, the ones that determine your ultimate success.

Until then,
David Lobo
Head of Growth, Workmate

P.S. What's one micro-decision you could eliminate today? Reply to this email - I read every response.

P.P.S. Want to eliminate the mental overhead of scheduling? Workmate's AI Executive Assistant handles your meetings, protects your calendar, and gives you back hours of decision-making bandwidth. Join the waitlist today.