“If I make, like, three good decisions a day, that’s enough,” Bezos said in a September 2018 conversation with Carlyle Group cofounder and Economic Club of Washington president David Rubenstein. “And they should just be as high a quality as I can make them.”

It’s an idea he borrowed from former Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett, Bezos said.

“Warren Buffett says he’s good if he makes three good decisions a year,” Bezos said. “And so, you know, so I really believe that.”

The Amazon founder and the world’s fourth-richest man said this logic comes down to what a senior leader is actually there for.

“As a senior executive, you get paid to make a small number of high-quality decisions,” he said. “Your job is not to make thousands of decisions every day.”

Bezos safeguards his decision-making by taking care of his mind and body, he explained

Why Bezos cherishes his eight hours of sleep

It might be easy to assume the founder of the No. 1 Fortune 500 company doesn’t get much sleep. But that couldn’t be further from the truth for Bezos, who likes to get eight hours of sleep each night.

He ran his logic for Rubenstein: If he cut his sleep from eight hours to four, he might get back enough waking time to make 133 decisions a day instead of 100. Bezos wasn’t sold.

“Is that really worth it if the quality of those decisions might be lower because you’re tired or grouchy or any number of things?” he said.

Rest, according to Bezos, is the input that makes the output better. 

“I think better, I have more energy, my mood is better, all these things,” he said. “I prioritize [sleep], unless I’m traveling in different time zones. Sometimes it’s impossible, but I am very focused on it.”

To be sure, Bezos said this wasn’t always possible when Amazon was first founded. 

“When Amazon was a hundred people it was a different story,” he said. “But Amazon’s not a startup company. And all of our senior executives operate the same way I do. They work in the future.”

Mornings are for ‘puttering’

And when Bezos wakes up, he doesn’t go straight into massive decision-making or anything having to do with work. He starts his days slow on purpose.

“I like to putter in the morning,” he said. That includes reading the newspaper, drinking coffee, and having breakfast with his kids before school. 

His first meeting isn’t until 10 a.m., and he saves anything mentally demanding, what he called his “high-I.Q. meetings,” for before lunch. After that, the window closes. 

“By 5 p.m., I’m like I can’t think about that today, let’s try this again tomorrow at 10 a.m.,” he said.

A different bet from the always-on crowd

Bezos’ daily routine looks pretty different from some of his largest competitors or other high-level executives.

Elon Musk has said he works well beyond a standard week and sleeps about six hours a night. 

“I tried sleeping less, but then total productivity decreases,” the Tesla and SpaceX CEO told Joe Rogan in a 2021 interview.

Other leaders narrow their choices in different ways. Mark Zuckerberg and Barack Obama, for example, both became known for paring down everyday decisions—famously, their wardrobes—to conserve mental energy for the calls that matter.

“You’ll see I wear only gray or blue suits,” Obama said in a 2012 interview with Vanity Fair. “I’m trying to pare down decisions. I don’t want to make decisions about what I’m eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make.”