Make Decisions Before You Have To
The fastest route to get to my home from my office includes a difficult left turn out of the parking lot.
If I manage to maneuver across the two lanes of oncoming traffic, cross over the busy turn lane in the middle, and then successfully merge into one of the far lanes full of speeding cars, I can shave a solid eight minutes from my commute.
Fastest, but not the safest.
Alternatively, I can take the much easier right turn, go around a city block (complete with multiple stop lights and bumper-to-bumper traffic), and eventually make my way to the same place the left turn would have taken me.
For the first month I waited patiently at the edge of the lot, looking for an opening before darting across the road. Despite being on high alert-owing to the difficulty of the turn-there were still multiple close calls. I found myself worrying about the turn the moment I walked out of my office.
Eventually I made a decision: I would commit to always taking the far safer right turn no matter how light traffic was.
The result has been a stress-free parking lot exit every time and far fewer brushes with death.
Ari Weinzweig likes to tell the story of the time a Disney World executive called to gauge his interest in bringing his iconic Zingerman’s…
