For most people, time management is stressful because competing demands require difficult decisions to be made on the fly.

Continually facing decisions with important consequences and imperfect information can lead to what scientists call cognitive overload, in which the demands from the mental work outstrips our abilities to cope.

Cognitive overload both increases the likelihood that you will make errors and contributes significantly to feeling overwhelmed.

One way to reduce this stress is to replace these decisions with principles or rules.

High performers like Tim Ferriss frequently use this methodology:

I look for single decisions that remove hundreds of other decisions.

Here’s a quick way to integrate this idea into your recruiting routine.

You already know to set aside time for recruiting (a protected time block).

But instead of trying to figure out what to do during the time block on the fly, start each session with a pre-made task list of five or six items. (here’s an example of a pre-made recruiting task list).

By starting each session with a task list, you’ll be 20 minutes into productive recruiting with very little time/energy wasted on decision making.

After building some decision-free momentum, completing your session seems a lot less daunting.