It’s estimated that we make upwards of 35,000 decisions per day.
That feels made up, but the researchers tell me so.
Regardless, our own experience tells us that we make an obnoxious amount of decisions each day, many of them subconscious like whether or not we should brush our teeth when we wake up.
One of the reasons I love frameworks and mental models is because of stats like the above. We lead intensely complex lives, and we can choose to adopt mental models that make those complex lives better or worse.
In the context of making decisions each day, here’s a mental model for 1 decision that can eliminate 1,000 others and improve the world around you in the process.
Leave it better than you found it.
Every single day we walk into rooms, places, and situations and are always faced with the same decision: leave it as is, make it worse, or leave it better than we found it.
A piece of trash on the ground during a walk.
A piece of equipment someone left out at the gym.
A pile of dishes in the sink.
Whether we realize it or not, we’re making a decision in that moment about what to do. Pick up the trash or leave it. Walk by the equipment or put it away. Let the dishes sit or load them in the dishwasher.
When we adopt the mental model of leaving things better than we found them, there’s no decision to be made. We simply do the thing to leave it better.
Leaving things better gives us our agency back, because the only question it asks is What’s in my control to do about this?
Oh, and this doesn’t just apply to places.
It applies to people. Our relationships. Our companies. Our schools. Our interactions. Our neighborhoods.
Leave it better than you found it.
It might not make life easier.
But it certainly makes it simpler.
Simpler and…better.
If you find value in the things I publish here, it’d mean the world if you’d share it with someone else. It’s the only way this space and community continues to grow.
✌️ and ❤️,
Adam Griffin