Traffic Light Decision-Making: A Simple Way to Make Better Decisions

Traffic Lights: A Simple Way to Make Better Decisions

Do you ever say yes to something and regret it almost immediately?

Perhaps you agree to another meeting when your diary is already full. You take on a task because someone asks, even though you know you do not have time for it. Or you find yourself in a meeting or in the company of someone you would rather not be.

Often, the problem is not that you cannot make the decision.

The problem is that you decide quickly, before you have had time to consider what you actually want in the longer term.

A simple traffic light system can help create that pause.

Too many decisions

Every single day, we have to make decisions as lawyers, including about fee-earning work, business development, delegating, what to tackle next, how to take a break, and what to prioritise.

Decisions about doing something, not doing something, agreeing to something, not agreeing to something. Sometimes we even find ourselves trying to work out how to undo something we have already agreed to!

Many of these decisions are made almost instantaneously.

So how can we make better decisions, particularly when we may only have a split second to respond?

How do traffic lights work for decision-making?

You may have seen red, amber and green used in other situations. For example, the traffic light system on food packaging in UK supermarkets gives people, at a glance, nutritional information such as the level of certain fats, sugar and salt. Red indicates a high level and green a low level.

In the same way, you can use red, amber and green in your decision-making and thought processes.

The key is first knowing what your overall goals are for your business, career and life. That way, you can align your decisions with them.

The traffic light method is then a simple decision-making tool using three categories:

• Green: this task/use of my time takes me towards what benefits the firm development and/or what I want
• Amber: this may be fine, but I need to be deliberate about whether it is worth spending time on
• Red: this takes me away from what I want or my firm’s business development goals

The method can be used for decisions about your time, work, relationships, commitments and priorities.

What does this look like in practice?

Red

Red covers people, activities, approaches or behaviours that go against what you want to experience.

They might include activities that do not improve the bottom line, your enjoyment of work, important relationships, or your wellbeing.

They move you away from what matters to you, whether that is having more time alone, making money, spending time with people you enjoy, developing your career, or running your firm differently.

Yellow/Amber

Amber covers activities, habits or people that are not necessarily harmful, but where you need to proceed with caution.

They can become unhelpful in volume, particularly when several of them are combined. Or they may simply not have enough of any impact to warrant the time they take.

Social media use, friendly but less beneficial conversations, administrative tasks, and certain emails might all fall into this category.

Something can be perfectly reasonable in moderation but become a problem when there is too much of it.

Green

Green covers actions that clearly take you towards your goals.

They give you more of what you want or move you towards it. They might give you more energy, drive or enjoyment, help develop relationships, improve sales or income, support a promotion, create new ideas or provide opportunities for learning.

However, they will not necessarily be enjoyable tasks while you are doing them.

Something can be difficult or uncomfortable and still be green if, overall, it supports your goals.

How to use traffic lights in law firms and life

The benefit of this tool is that, once you have clarity about what you want and your priorities, it can become almost instinctive.

You can quickly ask yourself:

Green, amber or red?

Will this conversation with this person be useful?

Will this meeting improve things?

Is this something I actually want to spend my time doing?

Is agreeing to this commitment sensible when my week is already full?

Going out for a social evening with particular people, or in a particular week that is already busy, green, amber or red?

What about a marketing activity? Is it low return or superficial and therefore red? Is it needed to maintain some presence and therefore amber? Or can it genuinely drive leads and therefore be green?

Sometimes you will need to look into something further before deciding. However, if you notice that you keep overriding your initial response, for example to say no, it can be worth asking whether that approach has actually proved productive.

Traffic lights and time management, clients and life

There are many ways you can use this.

For example, look at your diary for the weeks ahead.

What is green?

What are you looking forward to? What gives you energy? What moves you towards your firm or personal goals?

How could you do more of that?

What is amber?

Are there activities that are useful but that you need to limit? Do you need to change how or when you do them?

And what is red?

Is there anything that makes you feel anxious, unhappy or reluctant? Is there something you repeatedly agree to that you would rather not do? Do you know it does not help move your business or home life in the right direction?

What could you change? Could you do less of it, make it easier, or set a stronger boundary?

You can also apply the system to work.

Are particular requests from clients, referrers or team members green, amber or red for you at that particular time?

A request that is perfectly reasonable in itself might still be amber if your diary is already full.

And something that would normally be green might need to become amber temporarily because you have other priorities that need attention.

It may be that if there is a need to change enquiries, or tasks, that fall into the red in themselves or because of the volume.

The traffic light system does not solve every problem. It simply gives you a quick way of noticing what your choices are doing to your time and priorities.

Keep it simple

The traffic light method can be effective precisely because it is simple.

It gives you a quick litmus test in a busy day. More importantly, it creates a pause.

That pause gives you an opportunity to make a more deliberate decision rather than automatically doing what you have always done.

Its strength comes from knowing what you want, knowing what you do not want, and using the system regularly.

So the next time you are about to say yes, agree to another commitment, give away time you had intended to protect or do something you already suspect you will regret, try asking yourself:

Red, amber or green?

You may find that the answer is clearer than you expected.

And one more thing: the 24-hour rule

For some decisions, you can make the pause even easier.

Before saying yes to more work, a new project, another meeting, additional tasks, volunteering or even a social arrangement, try giving yourself 24 hours before agreeing.

That knee-jerk yes can sometimes be regretted, even when the thing itself initially sounds fun or worthwhile.

‘Let me think about it and come back to you’ is often enough to give yourself the opportunity to decide what you actually want.

I hope you find this useful. If you are a lawyer finding that competing demands, interruptions and other people’s requests are making it difficult to control your time, coaching can help you look at what is keeping you stuck and make practical changes to your approaches to working.