I have always enjoyed the decision-making process, which, likely, influenced my professional path towards entrepreneurship and, especially, sport trading. A reality where decision-making is widely regarded as the cornerstone of success.
In recent years, my career as a sports trader has decidedly surpassed my entrepreneurial journey. It is significantly increasing the quantity of decisions to be taken in a shorter time frame with higher quality.
Indeed, as an entrepreneur, decisions are undoubtedly essential, but they often have a broader scope. They have more time to materialize and impact long-term results.
It’s undoubtedly in this realm that I’ve learned to make consistently higher-quality decisions.
As a Sports Trader, I face a considerably higher volume of decisions that demand swift action and have a substantial impact on short-term results. It’s here where I’ve learned to set the ground for a high-quality decision-making process, identifying the influencing factors over time.
A clear mind for quality decision-making process
1. How to clear your mind?
The first prerequisite for a high-quality decision-making process is to keep your mind clear and uncluttered. Through daily practice, I have experienced how the best decisions require mental “space.” It’s challenging to make good decisions when your mind is cluttered, obscured by a muddle of thoughts. This mental approach helps me as well to beat insomnia.
Consequently, I’ve learned to organize my mind just as meticulously as I organize my room before working or my desk before a task.ù
How?
First and foremost, through daily meditation (20 minutes each morning after breakfast). This is crucial to maintain a state of balance and calm. This simple habit helps me as well to beat insomnia with an evening meditation session.
Secondly, I try to avoid keeping too many decisions pending for extended periods, favoring quick and light decisions over elaborate decision-making processes.
Each decision carries the potential for error, which I accept. What I don’t accept, however, is allowing these decisions to linger in a mental standby mode, piling up alongside other unresolved matters.
Of course, the importance of a decision dictates its treatment. The less critical it is, the quicker and more decisive the closure should be, accepting that any mistakes will likely have minimal impact on my results.
This approach ensures that only a few decisions (the truly significant ones) have the privilege of occupying space in my mind, thereby receiving the attention and focus they deserve. Embracing a clear mind philosophy.
2. A right spot
In my 20 years of pursuing a dual career, I’ve gradually come to understand that high-quality decision-making requires not only mental space but also physical space.
For this reason, I prefer to make the most important decisions in my office or in a designated room.
I personally tailor this environment to my preferences, ensuring it remains tranquil to foster the intuition and sensation I deem crucial for the decision-making process.
It might sound unconventional , but I rarely assess a high-quality decision purely through a rational lens, such as the traditional pros and cons list which I seldom use.
A quality decision is made by certainly analysing the available data, but more importantly, by listening to and valuing my feelings, leaving sufficient room for “gut instincts.”
And in the comfort of “my” preferred environment, my gut instinct definitely serves me better.
3. Decision-making process timing
We live in a hectic world that wrongly demands us to always be “on”, to constantly operate in a “live” mode. This approach doesn’t work well in decision-making processes.
A decision-making process not only requires its space but also its time. At least in my case, I avoid the tendency to be constantly engaged in that process.
Of course, every human continuously makes decisions in a broad sense: choosing what to wear, deciding what to eat, and so on.
However, we made many of these decisions through automatisms that expends the least amount of our energy..
On the other hand, there are decisions that are far from automatic and require careful consideration, reflection, and intuition. I set aside distinct times for these decisions to prevent all-day decision-making. This keeps my process targeted and effective.
The best time within a day for me falls in the late morning or alternatively late afternoon. Moments when my energy level is at its peak, considering my chronotype and routines.
4. Recovery to get better results
Due to the specific nature of my profession, there are periods or days with a particularly high density of decisions to be made.
Over time, I’ve learned how important it is to schedule moments of “recovery” after of these intense periods.
Very much like an athlete, after their performance they always follow a recovery routine for body and mind. I find crucial to engage in a leisure activity after intense decision-making sessions.
The same principle applies after weeks of continuous intensity where I like to follow them with a “vacation”from these processes.
5. Warm-up
Complementary to the previous point, I’ve found immense value in establishing a warm-up routine in preparation for sessions of intensive decision-making.
What do I mean by “warm-up”?
As a Sports Trader, it means gradually regaining familiarity with the decision-making process after a period of inactivity.
Initially, I might engage in lighter sessions, making decisions that bear less consequence. Thereby easing back into the optimal mental framework and physical state for the more demanding periods that lie ahead.
On a smaller scale, this also occurs within a single day.
I arrange my routines to gradually increase in intensity to prepare for the specific analysis and decision-making session. As previously described, this usually has a very specific temporal and spatial placement.
In conclusion, refining the decision-making process is a daily discipline. It’s a practice that can make a difference in many professions, as well as in our personal lives.
Therefore, I firmly believe in the critical importance of investing time to explore, test, and perfect new approaches to enhancing the quality of the decision-making process.
