Why You Should Limit Options In Your Life

Careful life-design makes a big difference.

Imagine yourself staying in a small cabin in the woods for a day.

Would you struggle to read a book or work on a project if you were there?

Probably not. You would devour ANY book that someone gave to you if the only alternative was to do nothing.

It’s a matter of options and alternatives.

When there are no other options that are more instantly gratifying, you won’t even have to make a decision or convince your brain to do something.

This is huge because you have a bias for picking the best short-term option over an even better long-term alternative because humans have developed this way.

It’s an ancient psychological pattern that used to serve you in times where survival was your everyday concern.

Now it’s mostly counterproductive because in this era people who think long-term, not short-term, win at life.

For this reason, you will want to carefully decide what kind of options you give yourself.

By eliminating more fun, stimulating, exciting options, you will increase the likelihood that you pick a good long-term alternative.

If you can only do productive work or literally nothing at all, you eliminate the decision-making process and circumvent the possibility to pick Netflix or Youtube over working.

Now, how do you eliminate options?

First of all, you can shape your environment.

Have your phone turned off and in another room when working.

Install a website and program blocker and block everything that is possibly a distraction.

Before doing something analog, like reading, meditating, journaling/planning, turn off all your devices and leave the room.

Secondly, you can make clear time boundaries.

Specify time slots where you can’t do anything but do the work, or do NOTHING at all.

But don’t make them many hours long, otherwise, you won’t be able to discipline yourself to follow through.

Thirdly, you will have to train your mindset.

This is the most difficult one, so I will leave it for a future post.

See you tomorrow.

Your self-mastery coach Max

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