You Spend More Time Choosing Netflix Shows Than Choosing Your Life Direction

You research restaurants for 20 minutes before dinner. You compare prices on items you don't really need. You agonize over which shirt to wear or what to post on social media.

Then you accept the first job offer that comes along. You move in with someone after three dates. You make major financial decisions based on how you feel in the moment.

Your decision-making priorities are completely backwards.

You're treating reversible decisions like they're permanent and permanent decisions like they're reversible. And this backwards approach is quietly sabotaging your life.

The Great Decision Flip

Your brain has a strange relationship with decisions. It overthinks the small stuff and rushes through the big stuff, even though logic says it should be the opposite.

Research from Columbia University found that people spend an average of 23 minutes deciding what to watch on streaming platforms but less than 10 minutes researching major purchases or life decisions.

You're putting more cognitive effort into choosing entertainment than choosing your future.

Why Your Brain Gets Decision Priorities Wrong

Low-Stakes Decisions Feel Safe to Overthink

Small decisions don't have scary consequences, so your brain feels safe to obsess. What to eat, what to wear, which movie to watch. These feel manageable, so you can afford to be "thorough."

High-Stakes Decisions Trigger Avoidance

Big decisions are overwhelming and carry real consequences. Your brain wants to get them over with quickly to reduce the anxiety of making them.

So you rush through choosing a career path, but spend an hour choosing your lunch.

Analysis Paralysis vs Decision Fatigue

You have limited decision-making energy each day. If you waste it on trivial choices, you have nothing left for important ones. You literally exhaust your judgment on things that don't matter.

Your brain treats decision-making like a battery, and you're draining it on low-impact choices.

Perfectionism in the Wrong Places

You want the perfect meal, the perfect outfit, the perfect purchase. But for life-changing decisions, you lower your standards because perfect feels impossible, so you settle for "good enough" or "whatever."

The Real Cost of Backwards Decision Making

Let's be honest about what this inverted priority system costs you:

Energy drain on meaningless choices. You arrive at important decisions already mentally exhausted from over-analyzing trivial ones.

Rushed choices on things that matter. You make career, relationship, and financial decisions with less thought than you put into choosing breakfast.

Regret on big decisions. Because you didn't think them through properly, you end up stuck with choices that don't serve your long-term goals.

Perfectionism where it doesn't matter. You optimize your lunch choice while your life direction stays random and unconsidered.

Decision fatigue when it counts. Your most important choices get your worst judgment because you've already used up your mental energy.

How to Fix Your Decision Filter

1. Categorize Decisions by Reversibility

Reversible decisions: Can be changed easily (what to eat, what to watch, small purchases). Spend minimal time. Pick fast, adjust if needed.

Irreversible decisions: Hard or expensive to change (career moves, where to live, major relationships, large investments). These deserve your best thinking.

Amazon's Jeff Bezos calls these Type 1 (reversible) and Type 2 (irreversible) decisions. Treat them differently.

2. Use the 10-10-10 Rule for Big Decisions

How will I feel about this decision in 10 minutes? 10 months? 10 years?

If it only matters for 10 minutes, don't spend more than 10 minutes deciding. If it matters for 10 years, it deserves more than 10 minutes of thought.

3. Set Time Limits for Small Decisions

Give yourself exactly 2 minutes to choose a restaurant, 5 minutes to pick an outfit, 30 seconds to choose what to watch. When time's up, you're done deciding.

Save your mental energy for decisions that actually impact your life.

4. Create Decision Templates for Big Choices

Before you need to make important decisions, create frameworks:

• What criteria matter for choosing a job? (salary, growth, culture, location)

• What makes a good relationship partner? (values, communication, goals)

• How do you evaluate major purchases? (necessity, budget impact, long-term value)

Having criteria in advance prevents rushed emotional decisions.

5. Practice Strategic Satisficing

For small decisions, aim for "good enough" not perfect. For big decisions, aim for "excellent" not rushed.

Perfectionism should be reserved for things that actually matter.

6. Automate or Eliminate Small Decisions

Wear the same type of clothes every day. Eat similar meals. Create routines that eliminate trivial choices entirely.

Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, and Obama all automated their wardrobes to preserve mental energy for bigger decisions.

The Decision Audit

Look at how you spent your mental energy this week:

• What decisions took the most time and thought?

• Which of those actually impact your life in meaningful ways?

• What important decisions did you rush or avoid entirely?

• How much time did you spend on reversible vs irreversible choices?

If you're spending more time choosing what to eat than choosing how to live, your priorities need fixing.

The Decision Hierarchy

Spend 30 seconds on: What to wear, what to eat, what to watch, small purchases under $50.

Spend 30 minutes on: Weekend plans, medium purchases, monthly goals, relationship conflicts.

Spend 3+ hours on: Job changes, where to live, major relationships, large investments, life direction.

The importance of the decision should match the time you spend making it.

Your Decision Priority Challenge

This week, identify one important decision you've been avoiding or rushing through, and one trivial decision you typically overthink.

Flip your energy allocation:

• Set a 2-minute timer for the trivial decision and stick to it

• Schedule dedicated time to properly think through the important decision

Notice how it feels to give appropriate energy to appropriately important choices.

Reply with what decisions you flipped and how the experience changed your perspective. The most revealing insights about misallocated decision energy get featured next week.

Next week: "Why you keep starting over instead of building on what you have"

Get Your Shit Together

P.S. Forward this to someone who spends forever choosing where to eat but wings it on life choices. Sometimes we all need a reality check about where we're putting our mental energy.