[[Deciding]] Lon Setnik **Date: [[2022-02-16]]** **What is the big idea?** - when deciding what to keep in our lives, we should use the “Extreme Criteria” approach - Summarized best as [[Hell Yes or No]], you also should ask - How do I feel on a scale of 1-10. Then anything less than a 9 is out - Then, how much of my life would I actively pay to do this? **What does this remind me of?** [[Design my life to live]] Avoiding the [[hedonic treadmill]] [[Four Thousand Weeks]] Life is fucking short so [[The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck]]* will help get you to what matters From: Orman, R. (2023, July 10). 105. How do you decide what to say yes or no to? This coaching session finds the answer for one doctor. _Orman Physician Coaching_. [https://roborman.com/stimulus/105-how-do-you-decide-what-to-say-yes-or-no-to-this-coaching-session-finds-the-answer-for-one-doctor/](https://roborman.com/stimulus/105-how-do-you-decide-what-to-say-yes-or-no-to-this-coaching-session-finds-the-answer-for-one-doctor/) **The Josh Russell Hell Yes or No Screening Questionnaire** - If no one knew you did it would you still do it? - If I had $10 million in the bank, would I take on this project or opportunity if I didn’t get paid? - Is this opportunity getting me closer to my idealized version of myself or a path to being a miserable son of a bitch (based on past experience)? - Will this take disproportionate time that leads to family neglect? - Take stock of bandwidth. Do I have room for this or will I have to throw something out? - If I were asking myself advice on what to do, listen to how is it being described, am I being fooled by fools gold?  - What are the potential upsides and downsides/risk-benefit beyond just opportunity costs to the other projects I’m working on?? - Take a beat and don’t answer right away. Sleep on it! ### My comments on the page: Rob and Josh, thank you for putting yourselves out there for the world to learn from and with! I’m going to give some thoughts to: 1) help me characterize what I think and 2) maybe help you or others explore. – I’m going back to fill out my “hell yes or no” template. This was such a useful activity. Rob, I could really see the value of going through coaching, not sure I can do this on my own, but your prompts (if you are sitting across from yourself with a job offer, let’s go through this list, how will it work for you? And what else?) were fantastic at helping crystallize Josh’s thinking and move from idea to action. – I’m reading “Saving Time” by Jenny O’dell right now, she has some frameworks for thinking about time that are orthogonal or even skew to our modern “zero-sum” thinking about time. A question from her book is, “What is at a right angle to clock time?” which for me makes me think about seeing time completely differently. I think this book is a helpful lens to add to “Four-thousand weeks” to create a better prism for viewing our experiences and life stories. One risk is that we see time as a tradeoff between x and y, her ideas are “what is z?” I think that means for me, how does my work, hobby, etc. actually augment my home life, relationships, community engagement? What do I learn in my other activities that makes me a better clinician? Can I look at my life as a flywheel to spin, not a pie to divide? and, “Is an hour of clinical work = an hour of wandering in the woods? In what ways yes, in what ways no?” For me, when I am in the back yard looking at my trees, I’ve started to ask, “What would this tree view as useful from its perspective? What is its time scale, and how do I relate to it?”  – Another writer to consider here is Nassim Taleb in “Antifragile: things that gain from disorder.” You can never do only one thing, meaning each decision has the direct and indirect consequences, and in complex systems over time, secondary and tertiary effects dominate, not the primary goals of the action. So, how do I create an “antifragile” existence for me and my family, how do I predict the secondary effects of my actions and decisions? What have I learned from the disruption of COVID and the next, predictably unpredictable disruption, knowing that “things that have never happened before happen all the time.” For me, as I write, I’m thinking one more question to throw on my list will be, “If I do this or make this type of decision habitually for a long time, what will be the predictable long-term effects on my life buckets (career, health, community, family, finances) and does this support or diminish my (our?) antifragile existence?” Hope that’s as useful for you as it was for me! Thanks again, ## How can I put this into action? - Never say "Yes" immediately, since my instinct is to say "Yes," I need "Distance and Time" as Rusty Dutton says about a dog-fight. I'm in a dog-fight against my instincts - Asking a good question is a confusing process, [[students need time for confusion]], let the confusion be, avoid the goal of certainty - Instead of asking "What are the risks and benefits?" ask, "If I do this or make this type of decision habitually for a long time, what will be the predictable long-term effects on my life buckets (career, health, community, family, finances) and does this support or diminish my (our?) [[Antifragility]] existence?" - How can I apply [[Appreciative Inquiry]] to the situation? How will this "Spin my flywheel?" instead of "How will this divide my time?" **When do I want to stumble across this?** #on/values #on/decisions **Is this related to a doing or todo project?** All projects! **Sources:** [[Essentialism]] [[burnout]] [[Saving Time]] [[Antifragile Book]]