No matter what you do in life, you are facing two basic issues: decision-making (or for those who can’t face the subject with dignity > choices assessment) and the (terrifying, fragmented and moody) attention span.

So far, it is pretty clear for me that experience and time won’t change anything (at least in my behavior) in dealing with them in a smart manner. My method to tackle the problems that come with them is prioritization.

But there is a rule: No lists!

Give up making lists, right away! They only increase your level of frustration. Whenever I write things I have to do, on a piece of paper, my mind already assigns levels of importance to them, but my attention is blasted to smithereens because the process itself of deciding upon those things revolves into suddenly discharging everything my mind has long-stored as ‘crucial things to be done’ for the next months or years.

I end up by being overwhelmed, stressed, preoccupied and with the false-impression that I have a busy life with all those to do’s ahead of me.

What’s next? Disappointment.

There are too many things on the list now, there is too little time, I give up doing some of them so, in contrast, to the planned schedule, I fail miserably to fulfill my thoughts and plans.

If you don’t have a list, you have fewer choices, and our brain assesses them more clearly!

Exactly how the process works in the supermarket in front of a shelf with 30 choices of chocolate varieties. How can you possibly choose?!? How can you possibly focus, specifically if it’s about chocolate!?! How would you know if you made the right choice? How would you resist the urge of buying more than one variety (although you don’t need the extra sugar in your blood)? Some frustration will certainly be there to remind you how you fail to make up your mind everyday even for things like buying chocolate, and I don’t say this is a small thing, we all KNOW how really important chocolate is -_- !

You most definitely need discipline!

As a smart human being, you are, I hope, your brain starts eliminating some of the choices: those that you would never buy because you don’t like, those that are far too expensive (and you probably don’t like anyway), those that don’t look so appealing and suddenly you have 5 to 8 choices of chocolate varieties to choose from and you somehow start to feel a little more confident about your next step. About the freedom of choice, you can listen to a funny TEDx talk of Barry Schwartz: The paradox of choice.

The point: if there wouldn’t have been so many choices in the first place, your brain wouldn’t have been so conflicted with the decision it had to make.

We are defined as individuals by our decisions. Our personality is a string of our own choices, good or bad, but that must ultimately shape our existence into something valuable for us (and only for us).

Yes, ‘face it’, we are selfish creatures that strive to choose what it suites our interest the best, given a certain context and set of circumstances!

As it regards the attention span, the Goldfish Syndrome starts to shape our personalities as well. Researchers say the goldfish has the lowest attention span, estimated at about 3 seconds. I find myself very related to this syndrome most of the times. Nothing is more important than my time. I don’t have the patience to notice things, rationally assess the choices, mind the effort of closely listening … if it feels right, 3 seconds it is all that it needs to convince me. If it has convinced me, then is deserves all the time in the world.

So, I always keep my choices in halt, in the moment, focusing on what is important now, and if something grasps my attention in less than 3 seconds, then it is worth of experiencing it, building a foundation for future decisions.