High-agency professionals repeatedly face the same classes of decisions: discounts, hiring thresholds, project greenlights, meeting approvals, AI usage boundaries. Yet most treat each instance as if it’s brand new, burning judgment on choices that could have been pre-decided. This episode introduces the idea of “Executive Default Decisions”: a compact set of pre-committed rules you design once, then apply many times—so routine calls resolve quickly, and your attention stays on true edge cases. You’ll learn a three-move model—Identify, Encode, Override. First, Identify: surface 5–10 recurring decision types that keep landing on your plate, from spend approvals to who gets meeting time. Second, Encode: define a clear default for each—what happens automatically if you don’t intervene—plus simple parameters (amounts, conditions, time windows) that AI or your team can apply. Third, Override: design an explicit override pattern so you can flex when context truly demands it without collapsing the whole system. By the end, you’ll have a practical blueprint for turning repeat decisions into fast, low-friction defaults that protect your judgment for the work that actually moves the needle. Clarity is leverage; defaults are how you automate it without losing control.