Hey Reader,
When I worked with James Dyson, he wasn’t obsessing over “adding more.” He was obsessed with taking things away.
The bag.
That was it. He wasn’t trying to reinvent every part of the vacuum. He was trying to remove one piece of friction. And that singular focus — binary, almost ruthless — created one of the most successful household brands of our time.
The same principle applies in business.
Most entrepreneurs don’t burn out because they’re weak. They burn out because their days are a buffet of options. A new idea here. A new platform there. A “quick win” opportunity dropped in their lap.
One by one, those choices don’t seem like a bad idea, but compounded over months, they drain energy, dilute focus, and leave you running at half-power.
Binary decisions beat burnout.
When you reduce your options to a simple yes/no filter, execution gets faster, your team knows what matters, and momentum builds without you feeling like you’re carrying everything on your back.
We’re taught that growth requires more. More products. More offers. More channels. More strategies. But in reality, scaling happens through subtraction.
One flagship offer.
One core acquisition channel.
One primary KPI you defend like your life depends on it.
Think about it: Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger often say their success wasn’t about the decisions they made, but the thousands of decisions they didn’t make. “The difference between successful people and really successful people,” Buffett adds, “is that really successful people say no to almost everything.”
Most entrepreneurs don’t have a “strategy problem.” They have a “too many strategies” problem.
Research backs this up. A University of California study found that decision fatigue reduces willpower and accuracy by up to 50% in just a few hours. That’s why judges are more likely to deny parole later in the day than in the morning. Too many decisions lead to worse outcomes.
Apply that to business, and you can see why founders end up exhausted. By Thursday, they’ve made 200 small calls on social content, pricing tweaks, “quick” partnership ideas — and wonder why they don’t have the energy for the big, needle-moving work.
When I’ve stripped back my own businesses, I’ve always scaled faster. My first online program hit seven figures because I wasn’t juggling five different offers. It was one program, one launch machine, one sales process. Later, when I launched The Board, same thing: one room, one clear promise, one rhythm. Binary focus.
3 ACTION TIPS / TOOLS
- The Rule of One (90-Day Sprint)
For the next 90 days, commit to one front-end offer, one acquisition channel, one nurture sequence, and one KPI. Everything else goes into a “Later Lab.” You’ll be shocked at how much faster momentum builds when you’re not splitting attention across ten directions.
- Decision Filters, Not To-Do Lists
Instead of endless tasks, create three yes/no filters. For example: Does this align with our core audience? Does this make us at least X profit? Do I even want to do this? If the answer to any of these is no — it’s a no. Share the filter with your team so they can decide without you.
- Batch Your Decisions
Context switching is where focus goes to die. Group decisions into blocks. Mondays are for revenue calls. Tuesdays for team approvals. Thursdays for marketing sign-offs. By batching, you reduce decision fatigue and free your brain for the strategic work that matters.
You don’t need more choices. You don’t need more offers. You don’t need more tabs open.
You need fewer.
Because burnout doesn’t come from working hard — it comes from working scattered.
Binary decisions. One offer. One path. One focus. That’s how you scale without breaking.
We’ve got this …
