What is decision fatigue is and how it can impact your life and business?
Did you know that we make 35,000 decisions per day? Now here’s the caveat with that – I looked and looked and looked for that original source and believe that it comes from the 2013 book by Barbara Sahakian and Jamie Nicole LaBuzetta titled Bad Moves. Considering I did not, in fact, buy the book to review this citation, take it with a grain of salt.
It also seems that everyone and their brother picked up on that number and ran with it. However, according to what I found based on their research, “adults make 35,000 remotely conscious decisions each day.”
And it’s interesting because there isn’t really THAT much info about how many decisions we make per day. There’s research on what decision overload and too many choices can do to us and also how we handle – or don’t handle – an abundance of decisions, but there isn’t a ton of info out there about how MANY decisions we actually make per day. But we know that it’s a lot.
So let’s go off of 35,000. Eva Krockow did the math in a Psychology Today article from September 2018, “Assuming that most people spend around seven hours per day sleeping, that makes roughly 2,000 decisions per hour or one decision every two seconds.”
That’s a lot. Yes of course, many of these are unconscious. Sipping your coffee, ignoring your phone notification, scratching your arm, shifting your weight to the other side, turning up the volume on your music in the background. But SO many of these are conscious decisions that we actively choose how to respond to. It’s no wonder anxiety, overwhelm and burnout are so prevalent.
We live in an interesting time. We have SO many options in front of us. And it’s a great “problem” to have, in some ways. And it also complicates things in others. Because we do have so many options these days – we’re presented with an ironic paradox of choice.
The paradox of choice means that an abundance of options actually requires more effort to choose and it can leave us feeling unsatisfied with our choice, and that definition is pulled from the Decision Lab. Did we pick the right thing? Did we take the right path? We get FOMO, or fear of missing out. And in reality, we have, in some regards, too many choices.
And of course, as everything is connected, this spills over into our businesses.
Where is decision fatigue popping up for you?
You can struggle with decision fatigue in business on things like which program to offer, which coach to hire, which software to start to use.
But it can also be a lot more subtle like subconsciously checking your emails every hour or mindlessly opening Instagram. This opens a million options on how to handle. Are you going to respond to those two emails that just came in or are you going to wait? Are you going to respond to that DM from that potential lead? Oops before you know it, you’re cleaning out your emails from two months ago. Or you’re watching that potential leads story and then you get sucked down the social media rabbit hole.
These teeny tiny, seemingly insignificant decisions can have major impacts on your day, that subsequently can have huge impacts on your bottom line, your productivity, your mood, and more.
And it’s not just business – the big decisions and the small decisions. It’s deciding if you’re going to wear the black shirt or the blue shirt in the morning. It’s wrapping up for the day and deciding if you’re going to do takeout or cook something. If you do takeout, where are you ordering from? What are you getting? If you cook, what are you making? Do you have all the ingredients or do you have to go to the store?
And the later in the day it gets, the harder it can be to make a decision because our brains are just fried.
And these are just parts of life. Putting on clothes in the morning and sorting dinner in the evening. These aren’t even big, monumental life decisions. But it gets even more complex and even more draining when you add actual BIG, important decisions in. Like if you’re caring for someone else – a tiny human, a family member, pet, etc etc. Or if you’re running a business. Or if you’re … insert whatever it is here. The more stuff we’re adding on, the more things we’re responsible for, the more decisions that we’re having to make. And the more we suffer from decision fatigue.
But here’s the good news.
Making decisions gets easier, faster and less painful with practice.
And if we break decision-making down realistically, there are really only 3 choices.
Yes, no, and maybe.
Yes and no are obvious. Yes means we’re going to do whatever it is. We’re going to move forward, we’re going to do that thing, we’re saying yes. No means we are NOT going to do whatever it is. And “maybe” is actually a soft no. But it’s one you can always change over in the future to either yes or no.
But even deciding yes or no is still a decision, and it still adds up over time, takes up brain space, uses capacity, and has to be dealt with – even if you’re choosing to not deal with it, that’s still a decision.
And the thing is all of this adds up. As I mentioned a second ago, towards the end of the day it can be hard to even decide if you’re going to make dinner or get takeout.
I know I’ve been so fried before that I literally just didn’t eat. Which yes, was a decision, but it mitigated the need to scroll through takeout options on Uber Eats and then decide WHAT I wanted and then decide if I was going to pay for expedited delivery.
Or if I chose to cook, it mitigated me having to pilfer through the fridge to see what I could pull together for dinner, or having to run to the store really quickly to grab a missing ingredient, or just using what I had and winging it. So I literally was just like “yep screw it I’m not eating.” Which obviously is not a great answer here, but my point is EVERYTHING adds up.
And then you throw running a business on top of everything else – oof. Hello mental exhaustion x100.
So how can you actually set yourself up so that you aren’t getting to the end of the day fried and hungry? How can you set yourself up so that you avoid mental burnout? How can you mitigate decision overwhelm and stop it in its tracks?
Ooh I’m so glad you asked. These 5 things will make your life so much easier, help you be more productive, and keep you from being fried.
Here’s how to make fewer, but better decisions.
1. Routine.
A routine helps you to have structure and is a sequence of actions that you regularly follow. A routine means that you’re not really even having to think about doing certain things because they just become a habit.
A couple of years ago, I had zero routine, and I was constantly feeling overwhelmed and like I could never catch up. I never went to bed or got up at a set time, I had calls every single day of the week, I would randomly decide last-minute what I was going to do for dinner, and I just didn’t have any routine. And when I started to slowly incorporate a routine, it gave me so much time and mental clarity back.
So now what that looks like, for me, is working out at the same time on the same days every week, which is at 7:30am on Monday and Thursday. I go to bed at the same time, wake up at the same time, and eat the same thing for breakfast. And every morning at 11am, I take my dog for a walk and we end up at our local coffee shop, I get the same thing, I sit at the same table, and I wrap up around 2. If I have calls that week, they are always on the same days and they are always in the afternoons.
It may sound incredibly boring, but it has freed up SO much time and space. And of course I have the flexibility to decide to go to the beach one day, or meet a friend for lunch, or go to an appointment. And I definitely do. But me implementing that routine actually allows me more capacity to make other decisions that I previously would have been too fried to make. There is something to be said for consistency.
So if you are struggling with overwhelm and decision fatigue, that’s the first place I’d start. Do you have any type of routine? Even deciding to bundle all of your calls over a set couple of days or deciding to wake up at the same time consistently is going to start a snowball effect that you can continue to build on over time.
2. Create systems.
You’ve probably heard me yammering on in the past about how amazing systems can be. And it’s true here too. It’s amazing how many small, seemingly insignificant things can add to your mental burden and play into your decision fatigue.
Systems help with that. And they don’t even have to be these big, robust things. They can literally be automating your bill payments each month. Saving your coffee order in your mobile app so you can just click to reorder.
Systems are great for things that are recurring.
So let’s think of a daily recurring thing. We all have to get dressed in the morning. Now we all know Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg. And you’re probably familiar with their iconic, basic wardrobes, too. Steve Jobs would always wear a black shirt, jeans, and white sneakers. And Mark Zuckerberg is known for his grey t-shirts, jeans, and sneakers. It’s a perfect example of how small little decisions can add up. Steve and Mark didn’t have to worry about pilfering through their closet every day and deciding what do wear – they already knew because it was the exact same thing.
So think about things that you do every single day, week, month, or quarter. So we’ve already talked about a daily example with the wardrobe. A weekly example could be themed days for dinner. So like lasagna Monday, taco Tuesday and pizza Wednesday. So every single week you already know what’s for dinner each day and what ingredients you need.
These systems and needs are going to vary for everyone, but the point here is there are things you can set into place to reduce the need to make more decisions and you can systematise the process relatively easily once you figure out what things are recurring in your life.
3. Prioritise.
Plan in advance, proactively reduce your decisions, and prioritise your tasks. This goes along with routine and creating systems, but it’s still worth noting as there are ALWAYS going to be things that pop up that demand your attention and can zap your energy and mental capacity.
If you take a proactive versus reactive approach, you can help to reduce overwhelm and decision fatigue. And one easy way to do that is to prioritise and identify your most important tasks. I’ve found a great way to do that is just do a brain dump. Write out all of the things that you need to do. Get out everything that’s on your to-do list. And then you can physically see what’s coming up and what needs to be tackled.
You can then determine what needs to be handled first. Maybe there are a couple of things on that list that HAVE to be done today, okay great, start there. But what you’ll often discover is that several of these tasks can be moved to later and can be scheduled out. And it’s not going to be swimming around in your brain where you have to keep mentally checking in on it and deciding to push it off – it’s already been dealt with for the time being and you can move onto something else.
Likewise, if there are some really big items that are on that list, you can break them into chunks. If it’s a big project that you’re not able to get completed today, break it down into smaller tasks that you can tackle and make progress on. One great thing about prioritising though is when you are clear on what needs to happen and you can literally go down a list and tick it off, you’re moving things forward and you’re not going to get to the end of the day burnt out and still having to show up for these big things that HAVE to get done. Because you’ve focused on the priorities and planned in advance.
Also, one thing that I have found to be a total game changer for me is to check out my list either the night before or on Sunday night. This is still involving decisions, but it helps me a lot for what’s ahead as I know what’s coming up for the next week and also I’m crystal clear in the mornings. So I’m not opening up my computer trying to figure out what I need to work on that day and just staring at a blank screen – I already know what I need to do and can get started right away.
If that doesn’t feel good for you or doesn’t really work with who you are, you don’t have to be confined to this. But you could even write down the ONE thing you know you need to get done that day/week and go from there. You can still leave room in for fluidity and spontaneity and still adding a tiny bit of structure that can make a big difference in your decision fatigue.
4. Delegate.
If there are decisions that you don’t have to make or conversions that you do not have to be a part of, delegate that shit out.
Part of being a good business owner is knowing which decisions you don’t actually need to make.
Now let’s use an example. There are differences in all of my clients, of course, but the ones that have the most balance, the most clarity, and the most, hmm, does spaciousness, make sense? Those are the clients who let those who are hired and who have a specific zone of genius do their thing. These clients are not micromanaging and asking for updates for each and every teeny tiny thing, and they are letting the key players work in their lane and do the jobs that they were hired for.
And do you know HOW much this frees up? Bigger decisions or questions still come up of course, but these smaller things that just take up bandwidth and the business owner doesn’t need to be dealing with in order to grow or move forward – they let their team handle them. They delegate.
On the other hand, I have had clients who just would not let things go and needed to be updated and have the final say on EVERYTHING. These clients were always frazzled, overwhelmed, stressed out, and felt like they did not have enough time. Of course these are things we worked on, but I hope you see my point here. These are solvable things, but only if you actually delegate.
5. Focus on one thing.
Have you ever heard that multitasking is a myth? Instead of doing multiple tasks at one time, what we’re actually doing is switching tasks. There has been so much research done that shows the links between multitasking with a decrease in productivity and an increase in decision fatigue, and it actually makes sense if we think about it logically.
For a couple of sources I found on this, check out Task Speed and Accuracy Decrease When Multitasking by Lin et. Al from 2016 or The multitasking clinician in the International Journal of Medicine Informatics from 2007.
The point here is that multitasking actually adds to your decision fatigue because you’re constantly bouncing back and forth and necessitating the need for so many more decisions. But you can mitigate that by just focusing on one thing. This ties back into prioritising but takes it a step further as you’re really giving your time, energy, and focus to one thing at a time.
When you can remove the decisions around smaller, more insignificant things and like we just dove into, take steps forward to make decisions better, it frees up your capacity, gives you more clarity for the things that pop up that you do have to decide on, and allows you to manage your bandwidth better.
If decision fatigue is something you’re struggling with and it’s inhibiting your ability to grow your business, pop me a message because I can help.
