If you feel overworked and underpaid, it probably isn’t a lack of ambition but a series of tiny, invisible choices you repeat every day. So says Codie Sanchez, finance expert, venture capitalist and founder of Contrarian Thinking Capital.
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She said most people are grinding harder when they should be optimizing smarter. The secret to working less and earning more is mastering what she calls micro decisions.
What Are Micro Decisions?
Sanchez said something is already “running your life right now” and deciding how much money you make, how much freedom you have and whether you scale or stay stuck. What’s doing that is micro decisions, which are “tiny, invisible choices you make on autopilot.”
These are your repetitive defaults: checking email first thing, rescheduling instead of systematizing and reacting instead of designing.
She compares them to moving walkways at an airport. “You step on and the walkway either pushes you forward or it pulls you back.”
She cited research that humans make roughly 35,000 decisions a day, most of them automatic, and challenged viewers to ask if their daily defaults are pulling them forward financially or dragging them back.
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Why Most Hard Work Is Wasted
If you’re working 10- or 12-hour days and still feeling stuck, Sanchez said it’s likely not an effort problem but a focus problem.
“Roughly 80% of your results come from 20% of your actions. Most people miss the high leverage actions that are often tiny, boring, invisible and you do every day.”
She drilled down even further saying that as little as 4% of your efforts might be driving over 60% of your results.
She doesn’t glorify hustle, however, pointing to Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps’ obsessive attention to detail. “It’s not about excellence every four years, it’s about how excellent you are right now on a Friday afternoon.”
Her suggested takeaway is to identify the small behaviors that actually move revenue, promotions or equity forward — and double down on those instead of staying busy.
The Hidden Tax on Your Productivity
Sanchez warned that ignoring micro decisions has a measurable cost. “Research shows it takes up to 23 minutes to fully refocus after just one interruption.”
If you continually try to multitask, you’re actually just diffusing your energy and attention, lowering output and earning potential.
She added that this kind of distraction drains your bank accounts as much as your focus. “Studies show the average person spends $314 a month on things they don’t even remember buying. That’s $4,000 a year.”
Micro Decisions That Built Billion-Dollar Companies
To illustrate the power of micro decisions, Sanchez pointed to companies that engineered small decisions into massive leverage.
For example, UPS redesigned routes to avoid left turns, saving fuel, time and adding billions to its bottom line. Southwest flies only one type of aircraft to simplify training and maintenance. Costco earns the bulk of its profit from recurring membership fees.
“One decision, infinite cash flow and you don’t even think about it,” she said.
The Micro Framework: How To Engineer Leverage
Sanchez shared a five-step filter to redesign daily work:
- Notice a moment of friction
- Identify the smallest repeating lever
- Constrain or cut unnecessary decisions
- Reinforce what works
- Offload permanently through delegation or automation
“Every system you have is a silent employee working for you.”
For high earners, that might mean no email before 11 a.m., batching meetings into two days or templating repetitive responses.
Use AI and Assistants To Buy Back Time
Sanchez practices what she preaches. She uses voice-to-text tools to save time, hires assistants and deploys AI coding tools to build dashboards instead of wrestling with spreadsheets.
Her philosophy is that if a task can be automated, delegated or systematized, it should be.
Why This Matters Now
Sanchez suggested this matters more now than ever, because “We’re in the middle of a focus crisis,” overwhelmed by information and “context switching.”
“If you can determine how to keep your focus in a world that is trying to steal it from you, you will make more money.”
Her final argument is that you don’t have to be richer or smarter, “you just need to make better small decisions.”
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This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: How To Work Less and Make More Money, According to Codie Sanchez
