We often tend to be obsessed with efficiency and productivity. How do we do the same thing faster? Which things can we stop doing? How can we become leaner, faster?
Mark Zuckerberg wears the same colored clothes daily to avoid “decision fatigue”. It’s helpful, but how much?
Let us say you save 30 seconds a day by deciding to wear the same clothes.
What change in the world will you bring with those 30 seconds?
The more important question is not how much resources we save, but where we invest them.
There is another point.
In our pursuit of asking “How do we do the same thing faster?”, we also forget to ask “How do we do different things?” Different things, newer things will of course we slower to start with.
How big is the harm if Mark Zuckerberg tried out blue shirts that brought out the color of his eyes so beautifully? Would it be loss of a million dollars, or a refreshing change?
I myself am a frameworks guy. Before I step into a shop to buy a shirt – I know what color options I need, what brand, size, style. I can be in and out in 15 minutes. Because 90% of my shopping, which is narrowing down of the options – has already happened in my mind.
But what about the options I don’t know that I don’t know?
I would have never bought a ‘red’ colored car. It is just not me. My mom and sister insisted. Today, I literally consider it one of my most beautiful ‘deviations’. It triggered many other possibilities.
As important it is to be faster at something, are you totally missing out on the rest?
What if you also brought in the ‘trial room’ approach to life? Of trying on different things without knowing what you want? Without the ‘obligation to buy’?
Maybe you end up liking something you did not expect. Maybe you will find that what you expected to like, isn’t really the best.
Start with a new genre of movies, a show in a foreign language, a different kind of book, order from a different restaurant.
Try it. Explore.
