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If you feel overworked and underpaid, it’s probably not a lack of ambition, but a series of small, invisible choices that you repeat every day. So says Cody Sanchez, finance expert, venture capitalist and founder of Contrarian Thinking Capital.
He said most people are working hard when they should be adapting better. The secret to working less and earning more is to master 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 up or stay stuck. What he’s doing is making micro-decisions, which are “small, invisible choices that you make on autopilot.”
These are your oft-repeated defaults: checking email first, rescheduling instead of organizing, and reacting instead of designing.
She compares them to the walkways at an airport. “You move forward and the path either pushes you forward or pulls you back.”
He cited research that humans make about 35,000 decisions a day, most of them automated, and challenged the audience to ask whether their daily missteps are pushing them forward financially or holding them back.
Why does most of the hard work go to waste?
If you’re working 10 or 12 hours a day and still feel stuck, Sanchez said it’s probably not a problem of effort but of focus.
“About 80% of your results come from 20% of your actions. Most people miss the high-leverage tasks that are often small, boring, invisible and the ones you do every day.”
He went even deeper and said that 4% of your efforts can yield more than 60% of your results.
However, she doesn’t glorify the hustle, pointing to the obsessive attention to detail of Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps. “It’s not about excellence every four years, it’s about how excellent you are on Friday afternoon.”
His suggested solution is to identify the small behaviors that really drive revenue, promotions or equity – and double down on them instead of getting busy.
Hidden taxes on your productivity
Sanchez warned that ignoring micro decisions has a measurable cost. “Research shows that it takes up to 23 minutes to fully refocus after just one interruption.”
If you’re constantly trying to multitask, you’re actually wasting your energy and attention, reducing output and earning potential.
He said that the less your attention decreases due to such distractions, the more your bank account also gets depleted. “Studies show that the average person spends $314 per month on things they don’t even remember buying. That’s $4,000 per year.”
Micro decisions that created billion dollar companies
To illustrate the power of micro decisions, Sanchez pointed to companies that turn small decisions into massive leverage.
For example, UPS redesigned routes to avoid left turns, saving fuel, time, and adding billions of dollars to its bottom line. Southwest flies only one type of aircraft to simplify training and maintenance. Costco makes the bulk of its profits from recurring membership fees.
“One decision, infinite cash flow and you don’t even think about it,” he said.
Micro Framework: How to Engineer the Leverage
Sanchez shares a five-step filter for redesigning daily work:
- Focus on a moment of friction
- Identify the smallest repeating lever
- Stopping or cutting down on unnecessary decisions
- reinforce what works
- Offload permanently through delegation or automation
“Each of your systems is a silent employee working for you.”
For high earners, this might mean no emails before 11 a.m., meetings biweekly, or frequent 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 create dashboards instead of wrestling with spreadsheets.
Their philosophy is that if a task can be automated, delegated, or organized, it should be.
why does it matter now
Sanchez suggested this matters now more than ever, because “we are in the midst of a focus crisis,” overwhelmed by information and “context switching.”
“If you can figure out how to maintain your focus in a world that’s trying to steal it from you, you’ll make more money.”
His final argument is that you don’t need to be rich or smart, “you just need to make small, better decisions.”