Managing your decision backlog

strategies for effective decision-making

The decision skill

How many decisions do you make each day?

Decisions are the hallmark of a senior role. Making them, and taking accountability for them, is often why your value - and your pay - increases as you go up the ranks. With so many to make, the effectiveness of your decision-making processes is key. So, how can you improve this vital skill?’ 

Executive-level prioritisation

The answer is that there are lots of ways to improve decision-making efficiency, many of them drawn from personal productivity theories.

Let’s start with the basics: is it really your decision?

Different frameworks exist to separate the decisions you should make from those you can delegate or just not make at all. Here are a couple of them.

• The Eisenhower Matrix splits your decision backlog between four quadrants: do now (urgent and important), schedule (non-urgent and important), delegate (urgent and not important) and don’t do at all (non-urgent and not important).

• The Massive Action Framework asks you to start each week by assessing your decision backlog against three factors: your priorities, your time supply and your time demands. 

It’s worth remembering that the ‘urgent’ and ‘important’ criteria are set by you. Something might be very important to the person you delegate it to, and very urgent to someone else. These are factors for you to consider, but the focus here is on your time and energy.

Reducing decision fatigue

Let me guess: you’ve prioritised your decisions and there are still lots of them left for you to make. Effective decision-making requires mental energy to minimise decision fatigue. Again, several frameworks exist to help with this. For example:

• Getting Things Done asks you to externalise your tasks and decisions by putting them into an external system (paper-based or online - your choice). Then you go through the list in front of you to determine which you can action at this time and if so how, which you can delegate and which need further research or analysis to prepare the decision for making. It also encourages sorting decisions into categories so that you are batching similar ones together. 

• Designing a personal Kanban board has a similar feel of getting your backlog into an external application so you can look at it objectively. A Kanban board typically has three columns: to do (your backlog), in progress, and completed. Ideally you only ever have two or three things in the ‘in progress’ column at any one time to keep your workload and focus sustainable. As you make your decisions you move them across the list and effectively off the board for you. 

Organising your decision backlog

Finally, we turn to ordering your decision backlog in the most effective way. One strong recommendation is to tackle the most important and impactful one first. This sounds logical but we all know it is easy to get swept up in lots of little decisions that are easier and can be fitted in between meetings, and that give us the satisfaction of ticking off lots of items on the to-do list. In reality, getting the big work down when you’re energised not only makes you more efficient at that decision, but also gives you a boost of confidence and motivation going into the rest of your day. 

My personal setup involves the Eisenhower Matrix and a Kanban board, combined with a weekly review and plan slot on a Friday afternoon. Whatever setup works for you, these systems do require some planning, usually on a weekly or daily basis. The benefits, however, far outway that added task. Managing your time and energy sustainably is vital for your mental and physical health and sets an excellent example for those who see you as a role model. 

Taking values-driven decisions

Of course, the final stage is to make the decision, choosing the option that best meets your needs and moves you closer to your goals. Just as making decisions is itself a skill to be practised and improved, so to making ethical, values-based decisions. Fortunately, I can help. 

I’ve recently published a new ebook, available on Amazon Kindle, for strategies and a toolkit for making moral decisions as an executive leader. Guiding you through value frameworks and the power of ethical leadership and governance, this work offers advice and practical, actionable steps to navigate moral dilemmas and lead values-driven organisations. You can download it by clicking on the image below.