I want to have a pretty quick conversation today. I’m going to jump in and jump out, but I want to talk about decision fatigue. I was having a conversation with a friend of mine a couple of weeks ago when we were talking about sort of in relationships we earn trust, right? And we get to say some of the things that we say to the people we love and we get to hold the people we love accountable, and they get to say things that maybe we don’t want to hear because they invest in that relationship, right. They sort of deposit into that account so that they can withdraw when they need to make those things said. Or, sometimes those withdrawals come in the form of being a pain or whatever the case may be. But there’s no one who’s keeping track and doing the math, certainly, but we’ve got to earn our keep in the relationship.
And I was thinking about this from the perspective of my relationships with the things I have in my life, right. This podcast has a similar thing, but I think about it less as something where we’re sort of have to build trust and I have to earn for the ability to say things and the more I think about this container and the in and out, a more of a decision thing. And I think about this as with a lot of the things in my business and my marketing, but specifically I started thinking about the account that I need most to be thoughtful and aware of, its status is my decision account. And so my relationship with this show, my relationship with social media, my relationship with my email list, my relationship with my business and my team all have trust accounts, but we all also have these decision accounts. And so where can I be making early proactive investments and deposits into that decision account so that I either don’t have to make as many withdrawals or I’ve covered the must make withdrawals, right?
And that’s what I want to talk about today. And so I want you to stay with me again. I’m going to try and be quick in and out because more than anything, this is something I want you to noodle on. And I would really love to talk to you about, so if you are listening to this and you have thoughts, drop them to me. Email DM me on Instagram, whatever, but I would love to hear from you particularly on this one. In fact, the email is probably the best way. So if you are already on the email list and you got this episode via email, make sure you hit reply and tell me your thoughts. And if you didn’t yet get this in the form of an email, you can do that by heading over to uncommonlymore.com and making sure that you’re on the email list to get the little note that went with this episode.
So let’s talk. I want to talk about this in a few ways, but I want to sort of start by going through some examples of withdraws from this account, because there are a couple of different kinds of ways we withdraw from this decision account. And when we make too many withdraws and not enough deposits, we end up in overdraft. Most of us have experienced that at some point in real life. But the consequence here is less fees and more burnout and decision fatigue. We all know what decision fatigue looks like, right? We all know what it looks like to hit the end of our day and somebody asks us what’s for dinner and we lose our mother loving mind because we can’t make one more decision that day. And so let’s really be honest with ourselves about what needs to be budgeted for. What are some examples of the withdraws that we have to make from this decision account? Right?
So off the top of my head, I’m going to sort of fire hose these at you. And I want you to really be aware of the reaction you’re having in your body as I go through these. Should I have guests? Do I need new cover art? How long should my episodes be? How frequently should my episodes go? Should I have seasons? Or should I have a evergreen show? What should I talk about? What are we promoting? How are we promoting? How do we get people to the list? Are we getting enough downloads? What should I talk about today? How should I talk about this? Do I talk about this too much? Do I talk about this enough? How should we process editing? What should I be recording with? What microphone should I be using? Should I be using this software instead of that software as a tool, do we need new social graphics? How many social graphics do we need? Should we put the show up on Pinterest? Should we put the show on Spotify? Should we put the show on Amazon music?
These are just a couple of examples and I’m mostly stopping because I can no longer say words, of some of the questions that we as podcasters have running through our noodle at any given time. And when we don’t account for these withdraws, we can end up losing ground and we can end up losing capacity to make decisions that are high quality, but also this leaks, right? It’s not just that it’s in this cement lined room and when we run out of those decisions for this particular thing, we’ll just stop making decisions about this particular thing, but we’ll still be able to make decisions about everything else. So when we burn off all of our decision making in the podcast room, we just start using another room. Sometimes it’s the what’s for dinner room, but also sometimes it’s the should I hire this person, sometimes it’s should I take this client? Sometimes it’s decisions directly related to the ability to deliver your service.
And so you have to have to have to be mindful of these withdraws because they matter not just inside your podcast, but inside your business, and most importantly, inside your life. And that’s for me as I was noodling on this and as I was running this idea through my head, after that conversation with my friend, I started thinking about, am I making enough deposits? Here’s the deal. I do this for a living. We do this for other people. So in theory, I should be nailing this, but in a lot of cases, we go back to this joke about the cobbler’s shoes are always the worst in town. The mechanic’s car never runs well. We forget to take care of our own stuff, right? And so I started going through, well, what are the things I do already that help me deposit into this account to offset some of these things?
And so some of the deposits I’m making into this decision account, a way of paying for these withdraws is my strategy work. Sitting down and mapping out what episodes we’re talking about over the next 12, 16, 24, whatever it is, weeks so that I have a big picture of what I’m talking about.
And so when I sit down to do an episode, I don’t have to go, “Okay, what am I talking about today?” Because that decision’s already made. I take that a level deeper and I outline episodes. And so I’m not getting stuck in these, so what do I say next? Or how do I say this? Or how many points should I make? I’m making those decisions all at once in the strategy session and in the context of all this other data so that day-to-day, I don’t have to make those decisions. I am batching those decisions, but also because I’m making decisions about what I’m selling, what I’m saying works itself out. It doesn’t tend to take as much decision-making to get there. Right. Do you see how I’m sort of covering preemptively? On the flip side, big stuff like, do I need a new podcast cover?
Well, I have a podcast cover. Cool. So the answer starts at, “I don’t need this question to be recurring all of the time.” So how do I make sure that this question doesn’t come up all the time and I don’t have to decide it? Well, I create checkpoints. So once a quarter, I sit down and I audit my show and I look at everything and I take in information, which is a great way to deposit into my decision account because now I have information and in most cases, my information will make my decision for me. For example, have I changed any other branding? Is this branding doing what I want it to do based on the data? It is. Cool. Then there doesn’t need to be a question. There doesn’t need to be a decision-making opportunity to change anything, to change the cover art, change the intro, to change, whatever.
So we’ve wiped that decision from needing to happen because I built in a checkpoint to assess. I built in information points to give me data so that the data can make the decision for me. When I sit down and I go to record and I’ve got my strategy and I’ve got my stuff, now I don’t have to make a bunch of decisions. I can just sit down and talk to you. And that means when something comes up where I am behind the ball, and I need to get an episode out, I have the capacity to make a decision around what I want to do in that situation. Do I want to record an episode last minute just on what’s on my mind and share it with you, much like this episode is? Or do I want to pull in a past episode? Cool. I’m going to pull in a past episode.
Well, what episode? I don’t actually have to make that decision. My data can make that decision for me. And because I check in and because I have a system that puts my analytics right in my dashboard, the data can make that decision for me very quickly. Again, I only had to make one decision there, whether I was going to do a last minute episode, run a rerun or the option I hadn’t mentioned, which is just take a week off. I only have to make that decision because the consequence of that decision is decided by data.
That’s it. And I have quality decisions to make there because I’ve done things like build strategic content that can be repurposed, that can be reshared. I have created space for me to make a quality decision and I’ve created tools and systems so that I have quality data that can also make quality decisions for me. That’s what happens when you’re making those consistent deposits. The other places I’m making deposits, isn’t having support. So if I needed to, I could say, “No episode is coming. Cali, I need you to audit the data, pick out a new episode and put it out.” So I don’t have to make any decisions after I’m not doing it this week, because I have a team in place who can make those decisions. When our clients have run into instances where they’ve been ill or they’ve had something else that needed their attention, maybe they were launching something, and it was like, I need some capacity. Cool. Here’s what we’re going to do. Do you want to do this? Here’s why, here’s the information, here’s what’s happening.
And the only decision they had to make is yes or no, because they’re coming to me, they’re coming to our team saying, “I don’t have the capacity to do this,” which tells me they also don’t have the capacity to make the decisions that come next. And that’s why they have the team. They deposited in their decision-making account, us. I have deposited in my decision-making account, my team, the support so that I can outsource decisions when necessary. And I want you to really look at this week as you move through your content process, your social process, your client delivery process, your sales process, your life and business. Where do you need to start making more deposits into your decision account? This is something that I’m sharing, because I think A, your podcast is a great place to invest and our team can help you do that. And so reach out if that sounds appealing and let’s do that.
But also because I don’t think any of us are really honest with ourselves about the responsibility we hold in that decision fatigue. And I think we can read every article about capsule wardrobes, and how CEOs have the same breakfast every morning that Forbes puts out. We can read every one of them and just check, check, check, you’re right. I should do the miracle morning and then I would be a millionaire too.
Whatever. But until we take on the onus of the decisions we’re making around not making decisions and the decisions we’re making to not deposit into that account, nothing really will change for us. And I say us because honestly with no BS, this is a last minute episode. And this is something that is just in my head right now. And I wanted to share with you, because this is a part of where I’m stuck right now. This is a part of where I had to go through and go, “Cool. Where am I depositing right now? And where could I be doing a more efficient job of depositing?” In sort of reflection of that, it’s changed how my week is set up this week. I’ve got some things I hadn’t planned on having on my plate this week, because I need to look at how I set up some better investments into my decision account, because right now I’m making too many decisions. My books aren’t even. I’m in the red, whatever cliche you want to put here and so I’ve got to go through that. And if I have to do it, you do too.
Those are the rules. We’re going to use the buddy system, because I think it’s really important that we start being really honest about that so that we can make change for ourselves. So that is my soap box. I tried to keep it brief. Again, if a podcasting is a place where you want to invest in your decision account, and you would like some support in making those decisions, we have space now for production clients. Head over to uncommonlymore.com/podcastproduction and you can learn all about what working with our team is like.
I’ve mentioned this in emails, but I don’t know that I have teased it here. But as a heads up, this quarter, Q2 will be the final opportunity to join our team, our client list, and start working with our team at the rates as they are now. There’ll be a ton of more information about this coming out in June. But July 1st will be when that new rate goes in place. So if you would like to start working with this team and you want to do it at the current rates, now’s the time to hop in and have a conversation with me.
So I will chat with you. I will talk to you more. We will talk more about this. I cannot wait to hear from you your perspective on this idea of a decision account that we have to withdraw and deposit in.
