Problem solving | BAReed Writing, Business Writing

Accumulating Small Triumphs

Big wins are fabulous, splashy feel good moments, but give me a succession of small wins any week and I’ll take that option every time. Don’t get me wrong, I am not averse to big wins – indeed, bring one on, I could use it. The thing is that the excitement and joy fade away into the everyday and then you are left with a nice photo.

We like to see our lives as a progression forward and toward something better. The big wins then should give us a jump to a higher plain where we will then stay and continue to progress upward from that point. But the truth is usually that the big win is a spike and then we come back to where we were previously and continue our progression after the interruption.

I haven’t even gotten into the other side of things, those difficulties – both large and small – that impede this progress. I’ve mentioned before that over my life I have tended more toward the melancholy so these difficulties always loomed larger than any triumph in my perception. Except in these last few years. The difficulties are still there but I have consciously changed my perception. (As I began to write this post in my head, my computer refused to start properly on the first try and I had to force a shut down all the while afraid that I would lose details of the idea with the delay.)

Look at what people accomplished without all of our modern machinery!
1875 August Menken
photo credit: Wikipedia commons

If triumphs and difficulties left some sort of mark, sort of like the graphs in black and red that show earnings up or down of the center line, as we look back objectively at our lives these would probably be pretty even. But in perception, I have found that if I make an effort to be aware of the small triumphs and give a moment of thanks then everything gets colored differently – and better.

We had many difficulties and challenges in the office last week but we ended on a small triumph which made it all worthwhile.

Deciding to Deal with Decision Fatigue

Each person on a team needs to be able to show a willingness to make decisions, not just the leader.

The average adult makes well over 100 decisions each day, not all of them are made consciously because habit and avoidance or procrastination are decision types too. You start your decisions for the day with the choice of how you respond to the alarm and go from there. Of course there is research that shows our ability to make sound decisions can actually be eroded by the need to make a large number of decisions, a sort of decision weariness. The official wording is decision fatigue.

Being the President would require the need for making a large number of decisions in any given day, here is his take on reducing the need for smaller, daily decisions:

“You need to focus your decision-making energy. You need to routinize yourself. You can’t be going through the day distracted by trivia.”

~ Barack Obama

Thankfully you aren’t the President, but it is still a good thing to think about how you perform on a busy day when many different things are thrown at you – do you carefully consider each new request, or does your brain get more and more focused on how busy you are and actually consider the activities you are undertaking less and less? Or, to counteract decision weariness, do you prioritize decisions and apply some simple concept to address routine decisions?

You need to take a look at the methods and tools that you are using to make decisions and take it another step. Each of us, whether we realize it or not has a method, but we need to evaluate that method for effectiveness – you must establish your own criteria.

“Fact is, some lives are so filled with impedimentary drama and ancillary decision-making that there is little time left over for work.”

~ Robert Genn

How do you make sure that you aren’t falling into a rut? That you are saving your decision making energy for the helpful decisions and not expending it all on what to wear that day, what to have for lunch, what email to answer first?

Sometimes the best decision that you can make is to decide your own criteria for making good decisions. And part of that is to make sure you conserve your decision making energy for the right decisions.

My original post was on 12/14/12 – Decisions, Decisions, Decisions.