How I eliminated 50+ daily decisions in less than 10 minutes

Article #123 of Life Unlocked - A newsletter by Dr Yath Prem, MD

Dear Friends,

Have you ever noticed some days you feel like you’ve done so much, yet at the same time you feel like you’ve achieved nothing? Or most days? Or every day?

From what to wear, to what to eat, to which errand to run first – we face an endless barrage of choices that silently drain our mental energy. Then in our working days, we make things worse by constantly shifting focus to attend back to back meetings, and responding to numerous Slacks or emails throughout the day. Each of these tasks requires slightly different energy and focus from our own.

This phenomenon, known as decision fatigue, is real and it's likely affecting you more than you realise. I've been experimenting with decision minimalism for the past few years, and the results have been nothing short of transformative.

The Hidden Cost of Choices

When I was working full-time as a doctor, I prided myself on juggling complex decisions all day. What I didn't realise was that each decision, no matter how small, was drawing from the same limited cognitive reserve. By evening, that reserve was often depleted, leaving me with diminished capacity for the decisions that truly mattered in my personal life. This led to a vicious cycle of work becoming the epicentre of my life and everything else revolving (barely) around me.

Research backs this up. Judges give more favourable rulings earlier in the day. Shoppers make poorer choices after prolonged shopping sessions. We all have less self-control and the ability to make good-quality decisions by evening. This may be why people say ‘sleep on it’ when making important decisions. We are way better at making decisions after a restful sleep.

Simple Systems That Changed Everything

So to overcome decision fatigue, there is one very simple thing we can do. Rather than relying on intuition and going with the vibe, we can leverage simple systems or mental models to either (a) process decisions methodically or (b) eliminate the requirement for a decision all together.

(a) Here are three mental models for efficient decision-making:

1. The 10/10/10 Rule: When making a decision, ask yourself how you'll feel about it in 10 minutes, 10 months, and 10 years. This helps distinguish between momentary discomfort and long-term consequences, putting the decision in proper perspective.

2. The 40-70 Rule: In most circumstances, make decisions when you have between 40-70% of the information you wish you had. Below 40%, decisions are too uninformed; above 70%, you're likely overthinking or facing diminishing returns on information gathering. Obviously context matters here.

3. The Eisenhower Matrix: separate decisions into four quadrants: important/urgent (do now), important/not urgent (schedule), urgent/not important (delegate), and neither (eliminate). This prevents urgent matters from constantly trumping important ones, ensuring you focus on what truly matters rather than just what screams for attention.

(b) Here are the practical systems that eliminated a 50+ decisions:

• Visualise your day (1-2 minutes) Each night, I visualise my next day roughly. This simple habit eliminates the constant "what should I do next?" question that used to plague my days. When I wake up, I don't decide anything – I just execute the plan I already made the night before.

• Plan your dinners (3-5 minutes) Every weekend, we plan next week’s dinners. Again, it’s a super rough plan of “XYZ days we’ll eat ABC at home, on Wednesday we’ll head out/see family for dinner”. This single planning session eliminates 7 weekly dinner decisions and prevents those “what shall we have for dinner?” moments that drag on and no decision is ever made promptly.

• Prepare your workout clothes (30 seconds) My gym clothes are the same 3-4 shorts and 5-6 t-shirts. I have them all in the same drawer and the night before or morning of, I’ll grab a set and put it somewhere easy for me to chuck on later that day. This removes both the decision of what to wear and the excuse of not having clean gear.

• The meeting batch (various switching minutes removed) Instead of taking meetings whenever they're requested, I batch all my personal side hustle/networking calls into allocated buckets of time each week. This means “I get into the mood, and stay in the mood” rather than ad hoc picking up calls and having to “gear up” for them. These are silent gains in mental energy that you’d otherwise spend without even realising.

• The "good enough" rule (30 seconds) For any decision that won't significantly impact my life or cause permanent change, I go with "good enough" in under 30 seconds. Which brand of toilet paper? Whatever's on sale. Which route to drive? The first one suggested by Waze. This rule has reclaimed hours of mental energy.

The Paradox of Freedom

Here's the counterintuitive truth I've discovered: constraining my freedom in trivial matters has dramatically expanded my freedom in ways that actually matter.

By eliminating 50+ minor decisions each day, I've created space to be fully present in my personal relationships and focus only on the most important work.

This is the paradox of decision minimalism: fewer choices create greater freedom.

So, here's my challenge to you: pick just ONE area of recurring decisions in your life and create a system to eliminate them this week. Maybe it's your morning routine, your work wardrobe, or your meal planning.

What mental space might open up? What could you do with that reclaimed energy?

I'd love to hear about your experiments with decision minimalism. As always, just hit reply to share your thoughts.

Have a great week,

Dr Yath Prem, MD

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Ps — I am trying a new schedule to queue posts for Monday mornings, let me know if you think this is a good idea or I should stick to Sundays?

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Quote of the week:

“We need to acknowledge and embrace a ‘work in progress’ mindset towards our careers, appreciating that there is no point at which we will be ‘done’ with our professional development.” — The Squiggly Career

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