This evening I had dinner with a friend and casually mentioned a self-help concept called advanced decision making, or ADM. ADM means that, for example, rather than waiting until tomorrow morning to pick out your outfit, you do it tonight (in advance). Steve Jobs used to do this. Actually, he wore the same outfit every day. The theory behind ADM is that each of us only has so much in our mental, emotional, and creative reserves, and every decision we make–what to wear, what to eat, what to watch or listen to–depletes those reserves. (Sleep restores them). The same idea applies to willpower. How many times have you “been good” in terms of your diet all day long and ended up saying “fuck it” after dinner and having a donut?

According to this limited-reserves theory, it’s not that you weren’t a person with any willpower when you ate the donut, it’s just that you weren’t a person with any willpower at that moment–because you’d used yours up for the day. Getting back to ADM, because each decision we make drains our decision-making gas tank, the fewer decisions you have to make about things to don’t really matter (ugh–the blue shirt or the gray shirt?), the more–um–gas you’ll have for things that do.

In my experience with ADM, all of this is true. Take this blog (please), for example. In the beginning it took a lot of mental energy to make happen, but now it’s simply “a thing.” Said another way, when starting a new routine–a writing habit, a diet, an exercise routine–your mind is going to put up a fuss, especially if you’re wishy-washy about it. But once you decide in advance that “this is happening,” your mind will eventually calm down.

In terms of this blog, I know that no matter what happens every day, I’m going to write. There’s simply no question about it. The decision to write daily was made a long time ago, and until I reach my goal of three years, this is it–I blog every day. Period. End of story. No exceptions. Consequently, because I’m such a hard ass about this, I never waste an ounce of energy thinking, Will I or won’t I?, and have more energy for actual writing or anything else I choose to do.

In short, making decisions TAKES energy; made decisions GIVE energy.

Tonight I told my friend that I’m often surprised when I’m writing. There’s this idea that writers are just listeners–that we listen to our characters and that tell us who they are and “where to go,” not the other way around. Some people say this inner voice is The Muse talking or one’s subconscious. My friend said, “Well, it’s STILL YOU.” This is what I’d say to anyone who starts a new routine and later begins to put up a fuss–the person who decided to start the new routine, who made the advanced decision, is STILL YOU. Sure, maybe part of you wants to complain in the moment–I don’t want to write, I don’t want to exercise, I want a piece of cheesecake!–but this is a less mature part of you. And this is the beauty of ADM, that you don’t have to put up with your Inner Child’s whining. In other words, you get to be The Adult, the adult who says, “The decision has already been made. This discussion is over.”

And so is this blog.

Until tomorrow, of course.