Ever wonder why you make bad food choices at the end of a tiresome day, why normally sound people snap at loved ones, or why it’s so hard to decide on where to have dinner with your group of friends?
Apparently, we have a finite store of mental energy for exerting self-control. People make bad food choices at the end of the day after trying to eat healthfully throughout breakfast and lunch. Parents snap at children after a long day of trying to get the household together. Office workers have a hard time deciding where to get dinner after long hours of making decisions at work. Willpower is a form of mental energy and it is not unlimited.
Decision fatigue is what happens when you’ve exhausted your mental energy on making decisions throughout the day. The more decisions you make, the easier it is to succumb to decision fatigue.
Yes, choosing a salad over a burger counts as a decision so does deciding what to wear in the morning, which shortcuts to take to avoid traffic, which room to hold a meeting in, and what kind of milk to get on your way home. The things you choose to ignore or pay attention to also count as decisions. Before the day ends, you have (on average) probably made about 35,000 decisions. So, how do you manage decision fatigue?
The easiest way is to establish routines.
Routines make our lives easier and help eliminate the need to make decisions. If you can do something automatically then that’s one less decision to make.
In the famous 2012 article in Vanity Fair, no less than US President Barack Obama has this to say: “You’ll see I wear only gray or blue suits, 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.”
The iconic Steve Jobs has the same principle – famously clad in a black turtleneck, jeans, and sneakers. So does Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, whose closet is reportedly filled with grey shirts. Singer and rock n’ roll legend Henry Rollins also has no time for fussing over what to wear as he sports a black shirt, dark pants uniform. So, there is merit in streamlining your wardrobe or having a work “uniform”.
Work in batches.
Assign certain days of the week dedicated to processes. For example, all creative work to be done on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. Administrative work and/or meetings can be done on Mondays and Fridays.
Eat something.
There is truth to that Snickers chocolate bar commercial. We are all b*tchy monsters when we’re hungry – no one is exempt! Hunger is scientifically linked to making impulsive decisions, however, don’t just scarf down anything you get your hands on. Try a healthy granola bar or a fruit. The glucose can help stabilize your blood sugar levels and mitigate mental fatigue.
How do you combat decision fatigue? Share your stories with us! Stay humble, hustle hard.
Written by Jaie O. The Help