How many tasks from your founder's to-do list did you complete this week?

People are biased to spend a lot of time on insignificant things and very little on what’s important.

Why it matters

This “tactic” of choosing low-leverage tasks over high-impact decisions is squandering our most essential capital - time.

Why it happens

• High-impact decisions take time, require theoretical engagement, and bring a postponed reward. That’s why we prefer to process these decisions faster and leave the “boring zone”.

• Low-leverage decisions , on the other hand, are action-based tasks, require creative work, and come with an immediate reward. No science is needed to know we favor that “fun zone” over the “boring” one.

Moreover:

• We need to be busy. We’ve built our companies with our own hands, sacrificing sleep, health, and social life. It’s being busy that puts a checkmark on our day. Does thinking for hours about ONE decision sound like being busy…?

• We need to feel the wind. And meanwhile, important decisions require this hypothetical struggle. Plan, analyze, simulate, discuss, delegate, repeat. Where’s the fun, the adrenaline rush?

• We need to see the results (today). Again, vital decisions usually won’t yield quick outcomes (unless you plan to pivot or reduce the company). Meanwhile, our heads are exploding with game-changing ideas that probably could knock everyone’s socks off even tomorrow!

This reverse tendency leads to completely ineffective time allocation.

What others think

From Archimedes:

Give me a lever long enough, and I shall move the world.

From Jeff Bezos:

If I make three good decisions a day, that’s enough, and they should just be as high quality as I can make them.

From Naval Ravikant:

All returns in life come from compound interest in long-term games.