Decisions, Decisions


Michael Lewis, author of books like Liar’s Poker, profiled Obama recently and I found the part about Obama’s comments on making decisions all the time was interesting. So many people complain about having too many choices, too many decisions to make, so how does Obama deal with it? After all, his decisions have far bigger impact than what most people do.

One of the things Obama does is to cut down on personal decisions. Like what to wear or what to eat. Why does he do that? “Because I have too many other decisions to make”! So if he’s making that many other decisions, then why not also decide what to eat or how to dress? Apparently, Obama believes in research that found the act of making a decision degrades one’s ability to make further decisions. So he felt he should conserve his decision making for the important things only.

Now combine the fact that his job is to make decisions, and he doesn’t want to “waste” that on trivial things: how does he achieve it? By routinizing himself. Which Obama admits, comes with a price: “It’s much harder to be surprised. You don’t have those moments of serendipity”.

Doesn’t sound like fun, does it? Almost robot-like? Obama agrees: “The loss of anonymity and the loss of surprise is an unnatural state. You adapt to it, but you don’t get used to it—at least I don’t.”

Maybe you should envy people with power a bit less, eh?

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