Righto, confession time.
I am absolutely hopeless at making decisions.
Honestly, if there were an Olympic sport for thinking about deciding, I’d have a gold, a silver and a ‘just checking I made the right call about entering’ medal.
Whenever I need to make a big decision, I do what any highly trained professional would do - I make a cup of tea and hope the universe sorts it out for me.
To be fair, sometimes it does.
Most of the time, I just end up hydrated and still confused - and then beat myself up about wasting time!
Recently, I was speaking at a conference and came across the Eisenhower Matrix.
Now THIS looked promising. Four boxes - how simple can this be:
✅ Do it now.
✅ Decide when to do it.
✅ Delegate it.
✅ Delete it.
I thought, finally, a system for people like me. Those who can’t even decide what to decide about before making a decision.
I gave it a crack. Started with the low-hanging fruit, which, it turns out, is a classic brain trick called attentional narrowing.
Basically, when our brain has no idea what’s going on, it goes - let’s just look busy.
So, you end up replying to emails from 2017, reorganising your desktop and suddenly feeling like a productivity ninja without actually achieving anything.
It’s like mowing the lawns when your entire life is falling apart. Great straight lines though!
Here’s my problem: Everything feels urgent.
That email? Urgent. That report? Urgent.
I sit there staring at the matrix thinking, Is this urgent or is it just me being dramatic again?
Before I know it, I’ve spent 15 minutes trying to decide which box the task belongs in, which I’m pretty sure needs its own box.
Don’t get me started on “Delegate it.”
Who am I delegating to? My dog Bailey? Historically, that hasn’t worked out great.
Mate, if I start deleting things based on uncertainty, I’m one bad decision away from deleting my entire life and moving to a cabin in the Coromandel.
Here’s where I’ve ended. The Eisenhower Matrix is about getting out of my own head long enough to just pick something and move.
Doing something slightly wrong is infinitely better than doing nothing perfectly.
(Although I’m still work-shopping whether that sentence belongs in “Do” or “Decide”)
Anyway, if you see me staring blankly at a to-do list this week, don’t worry. I’m not stuck; I’m just making a very strategic cup of tea before taking decisive action.
Am I the only one who thinks everything is urgent, or is that just how our brains keep us entertained? 😄
Let’s talk!
Making (or not) Decisions!