Big Decision? Why You Should Always Sleep On It Before Acting

/
 

Sleep On It
- Ch: 1.7 of How To Get Your Sh!t Together -

“A good laugh and a long sleep are the two best cures for anything.”– Irish Proverb

Typically the advice to ‘Sleep On It’ it is given when somebody is working themselves up over a decision. The suggestion is offered in the hopes that it will cause the person to take a breath, detach from the situation and approach finalising the decision from a calmer place.

I wish that I had seen the light on this one long ago. It would have saved me countless days of emotional suffering. A review of my past decision making process has taught me that I need to take a step back, calm down and detach prior to taking action.

I have quit jobs, moved house, accepted roommates, changed hobbies, started and ended relationships and businesses, and made significant purchases on a whim, only to quickly regret it later.

Some of these decisions could be reversed, but many couldn’t. Regardless I was left to deal with the consequences, either by dealing with my new life circumstances, or by eating humble pie and withdrawing. If only I had have slept on it!

By ‘Sleeping On It’ you are giving yourself a chance to calm down and take a look at the situation with fresh eyes. It enables you to see the flaws and implications of your decisions that you were initially unaware of.

This is because after a day break, you have calmed down. The emotion, hype and initial pressure of the decision has evaporated (at least partially), leaving the cold hard facts on the table. When you take a second look at the decision, you are able to see it for what it is.

This is similar to when you see a friend suffering with a problem in their life. Often from our impartial and detached perspective, we can easily see what they should do and why. But unfortunately our friends are too close to the problem themselves and they struggle to see the big picture. This results in our friends spending countless hours ruminating on the right course of action, attempting multiple fruitless endeavors and struggling longer than they really need to.

‘Sleeping On It’ enables you to be that impartial friend for yourself. Yes it means that your decision making process will take a little longer to implement, but for major decisions, that is a good thing.

The time spent on the decision making process should correlate with the scale of the decision.

Realistically, choosing what clothes to wear to the gym today shouldn’t take you much time, but choosing which school to send your children to should.

There is no rush when you are making decisions that could impact the rest of your life, or the lives of those close to you. Take a day, a week, or longer if needed.

I am not saying not to decide or act, rather to just make sure that you have detached enough from the process to properly evaluate it. How long should you wait? This is not an exact science, and no matter what you will always miss things. The goal is to minimise those misses, while still being effective in your decision making.

I like ‘Sleeping On It’ because sleep acts as a biological reset. It is a new day, and you feel almost like a new person. The emotion, pressure and tension of the prior day have lifted and you are in a better place to make decisions.

 ———

TAKE ACTION

The next time that you have made up your mind for a major decision, don’t act upon it … yet. Sleep on it and come back to the decision the next day.

Take a look at the problem and your solution with a critical eye. Pretend that you are observing a friend making the decision and offer your friend the advice that they would need to hear to be successful.

Follow that advice!

———

The Problem With Logic

It would seem wise to first consider our options logically and then make a decision. However in reality our decision making process is often reversed.

We make a choice and then we convince ourselves of why that choice makes sense.

If the circumstances change, forcing us to take a different course of action, we will then convince ourselves that our new course of action makes more sense than the original.

Consider the following scenario:

You have arrived home late from a big day of work after having to stay back to finish up on some overdue tasks. You are tired, irritable, and are just feeling ‘over it’. As you pull up to the driveway and check the mail, you are thinking about dinner for you and your family. As you are shuffling through the letters, a combination of bills and junk, you take mental stock of the contents of your fridge.

You have some unprepared vegetables and meat that you were planning on cooking that night, but you know it would take at least an hour to prepare and serve. You know that this will cause your children to complain in hunger, but it will be a wholesome healthy option – something that you really value.

You notice that the last item in the mail is a 50% off discount coupon for the local pizza joint, that expires tonight. You have eaten there before and was impressed with the quality and serving size. Despite your reservations about the ‘healthiness’ of the food you reason that it would be a good treat for the family, they haven’t had takeaway for a while. What’s more, cooking dinner would take an hour to make. This is completely unacceptable as it could disrupt the bed times of your youngest child. Besides, the discount makes the meal significantly more affordable, and you wouldn’t want to miss out on the discount!

So you decide to call the pizza place, and start heading towards the establishment, with the goal of picking up food. However instead of somebody taking your call, you are greeted by a message informing you that the restaurant is regrettably closed tonight.

Sighing you scrunch up the coupon and pull back into your driveway. The meat and vegetables is the healthier option after all, and you are trying to save money by eating in. Despite the discount, the pizza would still have cost far more than your planned dinner. You would prefer to treat the family following some act of good behavior from your children, or in celebration of an important event, not just out of sheer laziness of cooking.

You go inside and start to prepare dinner.

This scenario plays out all the time. We make a choice and then we rationalise why we have made that choice.

If we are forced into something, we end up convincing ourselves that it is was in fact the better option from the beginning.

The reasoning is simple, we don’t like to believe that we have been forced into the wrong decision, so rather than admitting to ourselves that we have been forced, we instead choose to rationalise that our decision is the correct one.

We may impulsively choose a new car, house, job, product or partner based on a plethora of subconscious workings that we are scarcely aware of. But once we have chosen, we use ‘logic’ to convince ourselves that we have made the right choice.

By ‘Sleeping On It’ you can disrupt this process and detach from the emotion of the decision.

———

Frequently Asked Questions

Q) When is it a good idea to make quick decisions?

A) For small, insignificant decisions, the ability to make quick decisive choices is a massive benefit. If you choose wrong, the consequences are minor, and by acting quickly you are able to cut through the minutia and decision fatigue, which will enable you to focus on the more important tasks.

Q) I am not an emotional decision maker at all, do I still need to ‘Sleep On It’?

A) Perhaps. Do you like your prior decision making choices for major life events? Are you happy with those decisions and the consequences that followed? Have you been surprised by unforeseen challenges and occurrences? Have you emotionally, financially, physically and socially been able to handle your past decisions?

If not, then perhaps you should consider sleeping on it, as it may help to improve your decision making process.

For a long time, I considered myself to be highly rational, emotionless and detached. This was true to some extent, but ironically not for the more important decisions in my life. The pressure and subsequent anxiety of the situation would often cause me to make quick, emotion based decisions, rationalising my choices after the fact. I have long since learnt how to become more detached, calmer and less generally anxious. This has taught me that although I would initially ‘feel’ calm and detached, this was merely a shallow veneer covering deeper anxiety.

Q) What if the decision is time sensitive and I will lose the opportunity if I don’t act upon it now?

A) I don’t like to go forward with these kinds of decisions. Namely because they often feel like a scam or a hard sell, like a sales tactic that projects time based limitations on a purchase to cause quick action so that you won’t ‘miss out’.

I notice my reaction to take quick, impulsive actions when I see a sale at a store. I am often compelled to purchase items that I had not previously even considered purchasing, primarily because they are on special for a limited time. I have learnt to avoid this impulse, because inevitably I will regret the decision to make the purchase

I hate this approach and usually just walk away. Yes, I may miss out on something amazing, but by walking away, I am ensuring that I am not falling victim to my emotions at every turn.

Resources
Matthew Walker on The Joe Rogan Experience #1109

Summary
It is easy to get caught up in the emotion of the decision making process. Before taking action on a major decision, sleep on it. Re-evaluate the decision with a clear and detached mind.