The Art Of Less Doing: One Entrepreneur's Formula for a Beautiful Life by Ari Meisel

Author:Ari Meisel [Meisel, Ari]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781619614437
Publisher: Lioncrest Publishing
Published: 2016-05-25T04:00:00+00:00

Autopilot

“Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them.” *

Albert North Whitehead

We waste energy if we take too long to make decisions. The three pillars of the decision matrix—delete, deal with, or defer—prevents the mental fatigue that occurs when we try to switch back and forth endlessly between tasks. We have the capacity to make automated decisions, as outlined by classical psychologists Skinner and Pavlov, through mental conditioning.

The first thing you need to do is put your ego aside. A lot of the people I work with are under the (false) assumption that they are the only ones who are able to do a certain activity. This is unhealthy thinking, and besides, it’s not true. If you are of the opinion that you are the only person capable of doing something, you likely haven’t examined the process of doing that specific process.

Regardless of your position or your stature, other people or other things can do the vast majority of the things you do on a daily basis. The sooner you can accept this reality, the better off you’ll be mentally and the more time you’ll have. Research shows that we should off-load and delegate approximately 70 percent of the activities we perform year over year.

In addition to the types who think they are the only ones capable of doing certain things, there are also the types who tell themselves, “This will only take a minute.” Almost nothing only takes a minute, and if it does, you are probably taking yourself away from something else that you are in the middle of. There is an opportunity cost in that line of thinking. Research shows it actually takes about twenty-three minutes to get back into a flow state.

International best-selling author, highly regarded psychologist, and winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, Daniel Kahneman, explains the two systems that drive the way we think in his incredible book, Thinking Fast and Slow. System one is our autopilot mode—the state in which we go through most experiences in life. The second system is the deeper, more analytical mode, which requires more energy. Our brains are constantly trying to push us to use the autopilot system, where things are automatic. This includes activities such as taking a shower, brushing your teeth, driving to work, or checking social media. Driving and talking on the phone (always with a hands-free device) are also automatic behaviors. When our brains drift toward autopilot, we lose touch with the steps in the process and stop thinking about how we could do it better or faster.

We want to take full advantage of the automatic system to put the overwhelming majority of our daily tasks on autopilot. I use Kahneman’s theory on my clients who think they are the only ones who can do something. When they are adamant that no one else could possibly do what they do, I push back and ask them to explain to me exactly what it is they do.

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