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Rachel Service, founder of corporate training provider Happiness Concierge, first imposed a decision ban on herself during the pandemic. During a high-stress period, she found she was attempting to implement too much, which manifested itself in a surprising way.

“I asked my spouse, what would they like for Christmas? They smiled and walked me to a cupboard and my present, that I had already discussed with them and already bought with them,” admits Service, with a laugh.

As far as harmless acts of oversight go, this was right up there. But in business, it can be far more costly. Double-handling internal tasks can consume valuable, unbillable hours and cognitive slips could result in missed deadlines or errors.

Service says this type of mental fatigue directly impacted her clients’ work. “I noticed that I was struggling to remember basic facts about my clients and it made me really nervous,” she says. “I was nervous for myself and I was nervous for that reputation piece.”

Too often, actions like this are provoked by shiny object syndrome: the state of distraction brought on by the quest for the next big idea, be it a sudden inclination for a practice to have a TikTok presence, the elusive all-in-one customer relationship management (CRM) system or the latest buzzy business trend from TED Talks.

“Most ideas are just random bursts of excitement someone saw online and they’re not relevant to your business,” says Service.

However, when leaders are stretched and their focus strays from the everyday, inefficiencies can begin to erode the bottom line. “If your revenue has increased, but your profitability is not at the level you want it to be, a decision ban is a great thing to look at,” she says.

What is a decision ban?

A decision ban is a strategic, temporary period during which a business or team intentionally stops making decisions about new activities to combat cognitive overload, so they can focus solely on execution. Christmas anecdotes aside, Service’s inspiration for the decision ban came from a Greg McKeown book, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less.

“His concepts, which include countless case studies of businesses being successful, focused on the concept that most things are noise and there are only very few decisions that actually drive your business forward,” says Service.

McKeown cites examples from budget-friendly US airline Southwest Airlines, which cut away at ‘frills’ like food service and assigned seating to focus on being low cost. Another example is Paul Rand, the graphic designer employed to create the logo for Steve Jobs’ NeXT, Inc. Rand refused to submit a suite of options and instead provided the Apple co-founder with a single, successful pitch.

In each case, success was achieved by a distilled clarification of focus.

Applying this lens to your business, the eradication of split thinking can bring enormous benefits. She describes it as a shift from what’s next to what’s now and believes the very fact that a decision ban is considered a radical idea “tells us everything” about our work culture.

“To run a profitable business requires a number of dull activities to happen regularly. Sometimes the biggest hack can be to do the dull thing at an excellent level and increase your profitability,” says Service.

What does this ‘ban’ mean in Service’s own business? “Anything that’s not the newsletter, is a no. No podcasts. No YouTube channels. No Instagram reels. Not because they aren’t fabulous measures, but since [implementing the decision ban] three years ago, we’ve never added more.”

By reducing the mental load, a decision ban helps manage energy levels and prevents burnout. It is not a form of procrastination but a strategic pause. “Postpone any decision that does not directly serve the core, essential function of the business.”

There is also a sense of autonomy for employees that can come with a decision ban, if it is framed correctly.

“To ensure the ban holds, leaders must empower their team to enforce it,” Service says. She recommends giving them a direct script to use when a new idea is floated, such as: “That sounds great, but last week you said we weren’t doing anything new.”

“If it’s around tax season, end of financial year, end of company year, why would you ask a hugely efficient contributor to be creative? We just want them to do a high volume of tasks.”

How long should a decision ban last?

There is no set-in-stone answer. It depends on the strategic needs of the business, as well as the nature of work that is piling up in the in-tray.

“So, if it’s around tax season, end of financial year, end of company year, why would you ask a hugely efficient contributor to be creative? We just want them to do a high volume of tasks,” says Service.

During these periods of heightened stress, an immediate benefit of a decision ban is often a calmer, more focused work environment. “Creativity is not possible when you’re exhausted,” she says. “I hear from teams that it’s a relief to just move on to the execution [aspect].”

Service’s first decision ban was for a period of three months, following signs of strain on both herself and her employees. “I think I went from October to December. I knew that if I added any more decisions into November, it would not be good.”

Service occasionally refers to it as a decision detox, which she revisits every new year period. “Since doing that [initial decision ban] three years ago, we’ve added more. I completely renovated my life. By doing it twice a year, I cut down my working hours to four days a week and I’m running much more profitably.”

Initially, especially at companies accustomed to being stretched to the limit, it will feel noticeably different. “It will feel weird,” she says. “You will feel guilty for not being as busy, but your job is to manage those feelings of guilt and don’t project-manage [extra tasks] back into the business.”

Service also stresses that the decision ban is not about putting off difficult decisions because critical decisions that affect the bottom line must always be addressed. Instead, it is a case of “strategic deferment” of new initiatives and peripheral projects.

Deciding what to do after a decision ban

Lifting a decision ban can bring a rush of fresh inspiration. Service says this return to creative work “feels like a luxury” for teams who now “have actually got juice, they’ve got energy”. The key is to channel this new momentum wisely.

To avoid becoming overwhelmed, she advises using a simple framework based on the ban’s original goals, such as the mission to “keep business simple, grow profitability”. New initiatives can then be filtered through direct questions: “Number one, does this grow profitability? Will it keep things simple?”

Directly following a decision ban is also a good time to assess how peer-to-peer communication worked during that period, and what positive or negative learnings can be implemented or acted upon now.

For leaders who fear that stepping back means falling behind, Service suggests embracing a different perspective: ‘jomo’ – the joy of missing out. Because the true benefit of a decision ban isn’t just to survive a busy period, but to emerge with the lasting capacity to make better, fresher and more rewarding decisions.