Despite wanting to believe that you and I are superhuman, our brains have the same limits as everyone else. And knowing some of these limits can help us be better communicators during Salesforce projects.
The limit for today is: the number of daily decisions we are capable of making before “decision fatigue” kicks in.
According to various sources, the average adult makes about 35,000 semi-conscious decisions each day. That’s an incredibly high number, considering I don’t recall most of them.
The number of impactful decisions we can make per day is far fewer.
So helping our clients to reduce the number of important decisions can be a big win. How can this be achieved? Here are some examples:
- Instead of asking your client an open-ended question like what do they want, offer them three choices.
- If they are starting to show signs of weariness during a workshop, offer to pause for a quick break.
- When they are having a hard time making a choice, propose your best option and tell them we’ll proceed down this path until it doesn’t work. It’s basically saying, “let’s try this option until it fails”.
The takeaway
By helping reduce your client’s decision fatigue, you are not only seen as empathic and as an authority, you also are able to steer the project in the right direction.
PS. This is why Mark Zuckerberg wears the same clothing everyday and why Tim Ferriss eats the same breakfast everyday. They are saving their mental energy for more important decisions.
PPS. I wear the same clothing and eat the same breakfast everyday 😀