(1/5)

On 1 and 2 — the first two types of problems, for whatever reason, the mind just doesn’t work right without movement. Ruminating at your desk always yields bad solutions or no solution at all.

You have to MOVE to get the “plumbing” working — it’s not about your conscious mind. Movement has a way of sifting stuff through the cogs and gears of the subconscious (~95% of brain activity). Pascal: “Our nature consists in motion; complete rest is death.”

The best way to make this happen: wake up early consistently, lift weights, walk a few miles outside, watch the sun rise, and say good morning to the man.

Putting it into place sucks for a few weeks. After that, you quickly realize you’ve been operating at half-speed your whole life. The mind works best in the morning at full strength. Decisions made at midnight = lower quality than decisions made on a full tank.I’m not a morning person by nature… always said “I’m a night owl” (lies you tell yourself) followed by waking up to a blizzard of emails + immediate panic + inhale caffeine/nicotine/Adderall… which inevitably, at night, gets followed by booze/drugs to “take the edge off” for some low-quality sleep.

Common approach but not sustainable… works in your 20s and early 30s to hold a job but slowly destroys your mind, adds stress, and leads to low-quality decision-making. Have to trash all this once you’re in any “real” seat where quality of decisions > hours worked.

(2/5)

That solves the first two buckets — “morning of” and “sleep on it.” Anything that arrives in the afternoon becomes “sleep on it,” i.e., push to tomorrow morning so it gets filtered through the plumbing: 8 hours of rest + sweat in the AM.

In the context of trading markets, if something feels off, don’t think — cut half and then think/sleep on it, with a bias always toward “cut the rest” vs. “add it back.” Red P&L scrambles the brain; survival > all else.

Overall, you should rarely be caught off-guard or making impulsive decisions on the fly. Funneling everything through this mechanism doesn’t guarantee being right, but ensures thoughtful consideration of the decision tree and preparation for potential outcomes.

(3/5)

The third group — the double sleep on it — is for anything major: big financial decisions, new job opportunities, plea decisions, firing someone, cutting a relationship… anything that can impact or cause pain to another human. This bucket always gets 2x sleep on it, max 48 hours, and here’s why.

First, devote full mindshare to these problems. Put non-urgent tasks on hold and go for a comically-long walk (80–100 city blocks, 8–10 miles) or, if in nature, hike, climb, or jump in the ocean.

After two sleeps, you’re ready to decide. Beyond 48 hours, diminishing returns appear. Your gut instinct, usually correct, can get overwhelmed by rationalizations or inertia.Extended mindshare bleeds into the rest of your life. Without a framework for confident, decisive action, major decisions start disrupting everything else. After two days, your mind has done its work — any longer is mental masturbation.Verify with your experience: two days is usually sufficient, versus two years or longer. Any regrets are rarely preventable through further foresight.

(4/5)Regarding advice from others: amazing friends and mentors are blessings. That said, your gut, heart, instinct, and subconscious know best for these tough decisions. Outside advice can lose the cumulative knowledge stored subconsciously — the sum of all you’ve said, done, seen, or heard. Seeking advice often confirms biases or conflicts with your instinct, which you may regret.Again, verify with your own experience — your subconscious is usually right.

(5/5)Lastly, the sharpest razor: make the decision causing the most immediate pain to you. Mitigate pain to others and shorten the time horizon. This is usually correct — “hard choices, easy life” — as it clears ego and vanity from your thinking. La Rochefoucauld: “Self-love is more cunning than the most cunning man on earth.”Hope this helps. Go forward confidently and decisively, my friend. Good luck out there.For more, check out samples from my new book Essays: De Rerum Natura.