Have you ever found yourself postponing decision making over and over?
You may be experiencing decision fatigue, something many business owners experience throughout their business journey. Decision fatigue happens when you're forced to make too many decisions over a fixed period of time.
As a business owner, you have so many micro decision that you need to make on a daily basis, especially if you have clients, team members, suppliers, investors, or other people you interact with on a regular basis in your business.
After owning and managing several businesses myself and working with numerous business owners for the past two decades, I've become very familiar with what decision fatigue looks like and how it prevents business owners and executives from leveling up.
What decision fatigue looks like
- Analysis paralysis
- Postponing decision making
- Overwhelm and avoidance
- Difficulty making any decision, big or small
How to avoid decision fatigue
Creating a clear vision for your future self, your future business, and your future customers is the quickest way to avoid decision fatigue.
A clear vision helps answer the question 'is this right for the business?'.
It helps you recognize the right opportunities you should be considering, and those that are out of alignment which become an easy 'no'.
Setting 90 day goals helps you answer the question 'is this right for the business right now?'.
When you run your decisions through those 2 simple questions - is it right, and, is it right right now, you will usually find that 80% of the decisions you are faced with become an easy no. This clears a lot of mental clutter and creates space for making the decisions that really matter and require your thoughtful attention.
In my recent podcast interview with The Female Founder at 16:42, I dug into how decision fatigue shows up for so many business owners and how to avoid decision fatigue all together. At 18:00, I share the simple framework that I recommend to all of my clients who are facing decision fatigue, including the tools I use to make my work days and daily decision making significantly easier.
At 5:07 in my interview with the Female Founder, I share how you can create a vision for your business, and I then go on to share how you can create S.M.A.R.T. Goals in your business so that you don't ever have to deal with decision fatigue again.
Decision fatigue can be an indicator of a bigger problem
Occasional decision fatigue is just part of being an entrepreneur but chronic decision fatigue is usually a clear indicator that you are doing way too much and need to lean out your business.
When you focus in on the things that are providing the most value to your customers and the highest profitability for the business and you cut everything else, you significantly minimize the number of unnecessary decisions you need to make.
When you then systematize the remaining things you do in your business, you eliminate numerous mico-decisions. This gives you the mental space to focus on and quickly make the big and important decisions in your business.
When you are ready to lean out and learn how to do less to achieve more, I can help. Explore the various ways we can support you in leaning out and leveling up your business.
Have questions about avoiding decision fatigue? Share them below. XX
by Crista Grasso
Crista Grasso is the go-to strategic planning expert for leading global businesses and online entrepreneurs when they want to scale. Known as the "Business Optimizer", Crista has the ability to quickly cut through noise and focus on optimizing the core things that will make the biggest impact to scale a business simply and sustainably. She specializes in helping businesses gain clarity on the most important things that will drive maximum value for their clients and maximum profits for their business. She is the creator of the Lean Out Method, 90 Day Lean Out Planner, and host of the Lean Out Your Business Podcast.
