The speed at which we make decisions is an important skill to train. Warren Buffett is quoted as calling his business partner Charlie Munger “the best 60 second mind in the world”.

Decisive people tend to make for strong leaders. Granted some decisions should be more thought out than others – we calibrate the effort put into a decision based on its importance (this is a decision in and of itself). Notice the use of the word “effort”, not time. Time passing alone doesn’t mean the decision is better thought out.

I normally don’t eat until noon to save time in the morning. This morning, I woke up wanting granola. I ended up making my wife a peanut butter and jelly and decided to join her. Still I felt fixated on my initial morning desire for granola, so I had that too.

Assessing the morning, I changed from my decision made in advance (no breakfast) to an in the moment desire (granola) to what was convenient (peanut butter jelly) then back to the desire. Now I’m not trying to lose weight and I didn’t have anything critical going on in the morning so it’s not a big deal to me.

Still it is a great example lack of decisiveness moves us away from our goals. Having no breakfast to having two breakfasts is completely different outcome with a different amount of calories and time spent on my own breakfast instead of helping the family. It also reinforces that I don’t stick to decisions I make in advance. I’m belaboring the point to make an example – with decisions around more serious goals this decision making strategy would lead to a much lower quality outcome in my life. And everything is related so is a good opportunity to practice fast and decisive decision-making in the small things as well.

Be decisive and practice with low risk decisions. Calibrate your decisiveness to ensure you aren’t wasting time and energy on the little things. You will eventually get to the point where you make high stakes decisions quickly and effectively after obtaining what relevant information is available.