think4yourself

arimelber:

These are Barack Obama’s rules for being an effective President, but you can use them, too:

1. Only make big decisions
   
   “You need to focus your decision-making energy. You need to routinize yourself. You can’t be going through the day distracted by trivia.”
   
   Obama only wears blue or gray suits to work, for example, in order to “pare down” decisions: “I don’t want to make decisions about what I’m eating or wearing, because I have too many other decisions to make.”
   
   
2. “Keep a list.”
   
   Everybody’s doing it.
   
   
3. “Stay Open”
   
   “One of my most important tasks is making sure I stay open to people — and the meaning of what I’m doing — but not to get so overwhelmed by it that it’s paralyzing,” Obama says.
   
   
4. Work out
   
   “You have to exercise,” Obama says, “or at some point you’ll just break down.”
   
   

As told to author Michael Lewis.