Combating Decision Fatigue

Source: American Scientific

Decisions. Decisions. Decisions.

From the moment you wake, you start making decisions—often an average of 35,000 decisions each day! While some are made unconsciously, many require serious brain power. These minor and major decisions add up fast. And the more decisions you have to make, the more they wear you out—resulting in decision fatigue.

As the number of decisions adds up, your cognitive ability to make more decisions declines—regardless of the size or difficulty of the decision.

When decision fatigue kicks in, you can be mentally and physically tired, experience brain fog, and feel overwhelmed. Often, you either become overloaded with decisions and give up, or you make illogical decisions you wouldn’t normally make. Your brain starts to look for shortcuts that result in negative effects, including:

• Decision paralysis

• Diminished self-control (impulse buying)

• Stress and anxiety

• Avoidance behaviors (procrastination)

• Confusion

Decision-making is an energy-consuming process; but there are strategies to effectively combat decision fatigue, including:

1. Make important decisions first:

Think of your decision-making power as a battery.  Each decision requires energy, and the more you make, the more energy you use. It’s best to make your biggest and most important decisions in the morning when you’re fresh and fully charged.

Research shows people tend to change their decision-making process throughout the day. In the morning, we tend to be more cautious and methodical in our choices. However, as the day wears on and our mental capacity for decisions diminishes, we tend to make more abrupt and less thorough choices.   

It may be something you feel like avoiding, but making a big decision or completing a task first thing can have the greatest impact on your day!

2. Simplify decisions:

Repeated daily decisions can quickly deplete energy. Eating the same food for breakfast or lunch is one method people often use to minimize their daily decisions. Our colleague Charlotte simplified one of her daily decisions by participating in “The Dress Challenge.” By wearing the same dress for 100 days, she discovered many benefits, including:

• Contentment

• Reduced decisions

• Inner peace through minimalism

• Increased creativity

“Being at home during the pandemic made me feel weighed down by all the 'stuff' and clutter around me. I wanted to simplify my life. I liked the idea of not contributing to the ‘fast fashion’ industry, having less laundry to do, and I wanted to see how wearing the same item of clothing would change how I think about things,” said Charlotte. “What I discovered was freeing myself from a daily decision gave me more creative space. And when the 100-day challenge was over and I could wear other outfits, I found I was annoyed I had to start making that decision again. In the ten days following the end of the challenge, I wore the dress seven times!”

Another tactic to simplify decisions and eliminate “what should I wear?” stress is to create a capsule wardrobe. Putting your closet on a “fashion diet” may be just the thing you need to simplify your life and free your mind for other activities.

3. Delegate Decisions:

One of the best leadership traits you can develop is to remove yourself from the decision-making process. By giving this responsibility to other people, you reduce the number of decisions you have to make and also empower others. Whether at home or with coworkers, delegating encourages problem-solving, builds trust, promotes learning, and fosters personal and professional development.

Look at your to-do list… is there something you can delegate to someone else?

4. Plan daily decisions the night before:

Many decisions we make are daily—what time to get up, what to wear, what to eat, what to pack in your gym bag, etc.  Most of these decisions can be made in a matter of minutes and typically don’t require as much brain power as other decisions.

Make a habit of planning, organizing, and simplifying these decisions the night before, allowing you to save your mental capacity for bigger decisions in the morning.

5. Avoid questioning your final decision:

Stop overthinking your choices. When faced with a tough decision, it’s easy to feel trapped in an endless cycle of scenarios. Eventually, you may feel so overwhelmed that you ignore, delay, or agonize to the point of paralysis.

When faced with decisions, especially tough ones, let go of being perfect, trust your instinct, and know that most decisions can be tweaked and adjusted.

Making decisions can be downright exhausting. Being able to recognize the signs of decision fatigue and reduce the anxiety and stress around decision-making will go a long way toward improving your efficiency and mental well-being.