371 GID How to Make Absolute Decisions Using Rules

Modern Mentor

Macmillan Holdings, LLC

Careers, Business, Management

4.3 • 720 Ratings

🗓️ 10 August 2015

⏱️ 6 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Too many of us spend our time trying to make good decisions. Sure, that's important. But you can do even better by making some of those decisions into rules. Read the full transcript here: http://bit.ly/1LjDrjG

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This is Stevea Robbins.
0:04.0	Welcome to the Get It Done Guys quick and dirty tips to work less and do more.
0:08.9	Don't you just love people who blindly follow the rules?
0:11.8	Could you please remove the erroneous charge on my credit card bill?
0:14.6	I'm sorry, sir.
0:15.8	The rules say you have to go to our website and correctly answer 16 questions about the ability of scorpions to tap dance
0:21.1	before we can do that. You want to throttle them because it's pretty clear they've turned
0:25.6	their minds off and have become nothing more than an unthinking conduit for some stupid rulebook
0:30.3	somewhere. And you're right, they have. When they're in that mode, they really don't even
0:35.4	qualify as a thinking human being anymore, which is great.
0:39.3	And today's episode is about how you can learn to become an unthinking automaton as well, all in the service of good, of course.
0:45.7	What these robotic customer service people know that we don't, or at least they did know back when they were human, is that decisions that require judgment are hard.
0:53.9	Oh my gosh, they're hard. Let's say
0:55.9	that intern M.G asks you if you'll help with a report. Could you give me some help with my report?
1:00.8	There's a lot to consider. How much time you have on your schedule, how much time it will take to
1:04.6	help him, how helpful he's been to you, how well he's treated you in the past, and whether he's a 20-year-old overachiever who will undoubtedly be awarded your job after you're laid off to die in a gutter.
1:12.8	Ha-ha. Just listing those criteria took me a couple of minutes. Imagine how hard it will be to make the decision itself.
1:19.6	It's far faster to use absolute decisions, otherwise called rules. When you make an absolute decision, you have a simple rule that you apply every
1:27.8	time a situation arises. If someone asks for my help, I'll give them up to four hours a week of
1:32.3	my time as long as I'm not already giving those hours to someone else. Now when MG asks,
1:36.8	you can instantly look at your calendar, see that your altruism time is completely booked,
1:41.2	and politely say, I'm sorry, MG,G., I really want to help, but there's
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Macmillan Holdings, LLC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Macmillan Holdings, LLC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.