4. How To Overcome Decision Fatigue

So what is decision fatigue? decision fatigue is defined as mental depletion caused by repeatedly making decisions. And the best example I have for this is something that I experience a lot, which is where you come home from a long day of work, and you can't decide what you want for dinner. I'd say even worse than that. I feel like sometimes I would rather not eat and go to bed hungry, than make a decision about what I'm going to have for dinner. I would rather somebody just bought me a plate of food, even if it was food that I don't particularly enjoy. I'd rather sit there and eat that then make a decision about what to have for dinner and decide to have something maybe delicious, but I like just the thought of making one more decision is too much for me.

So an example I have of this in my house is leaving the toilet seat up. It's an annoying habit, but you know, does happen. It's not that big of a deal. But when you're suffering from decision fatigue, and you're stressing, you're tired, you might, for example, go into the bathroom, see that the toilet seat was left up. And this just causes a massive row and you end up having a screaming fit with your partner over a toilet seat. Really, you don't care about the toilet seat, you're arguing because you're affected by decision fatigue,

the next one is resistance to change. So the more change means more decisions, which means it's easier for the brain to actually reject that change. And this is a big one for me, I actually really like change. I know a lot of people don't. But there's some times where things will change. And it's just easier to reject that change. Or for example, you know, maybe you want to find a better job, maybe the job that you have at the moment isn't isn't your forever job and you think to yourself, I need to find a job that suits me a job that I like more, you know, it's going to make you happier. But knowing that you're going to have to start writing a CV knowing that you're going to have to make decisions and that you're going to have to write a cover letter and go to an interview, you know, it's a big change, you might have to change things about your life, it's easy for you brands just go, I don't actually want to do this right now and just kind of reject that. So for me when it comes to making big life decisions, I do suffer from that emotional sort of decision fatigue.

Yeah, and this is again, this is something that I do like all the time, so and it's something that I know I need to get better at with this actually, is this eating from an emotional perspective because I'm just so tired of making the decision of what I'm going to eat. And you know, there's times where I'll just drive past McDonald's and i'll just think I need to go in there get a tonne of fries, get the chips and whatever else. It's just mentally exhausting thinking just thinking about something simple like a meal that you need to have.

And that also leads on to other things, which is the next point, which is the paralysis of over analysing everything, you know, too many decisions overwhelms us, we start to cut back on the number of options are available to us, you know, I'm not going to bother going and making something healthy to eat, i'll just go somewhere where they just quickly stick it on a plate. It's not even on a plate is it? It's in a bag you're like, oh, yeah, this is amazing. And then it's really hard to kind of contrast those different options effectively when you're so mentally drained and so mentally tired of actually making those decisions.

Yeah, this is a really big one. Because I feel like a lot of stuff about self care, particularly online focuses on the importance of mental health, self care, and self love. But when you're actually doing those things, those very things that lead to self care, self love, and step away and recharge, you automatically then become filled with so much guilt, such as our, we shouldn't really be doing this, I shouldn't really be sitting here watching this, I need to get up and do this, because I'm being so lazy. And your mind becomes filled with so many negative emotions about yourself. And even that, in and of itself impacts decision fatigue, more than you know, because now you're overwhelmed with not only decision making, but also the guilt of taking care of yourself.

So the second one is really vital. Something that I feel very passionate about, I don't always manage to achieve it. But I do feel very passionate about striving for. And that's to limit your social media. Even if you're not actually scrolling or posting our smartphones, bleep and burn, they drag our attention back to social media. And willpower has been shown to be a finite resource. If you're using your willpower to ignore social media, it will lead to decision fatigue. Social media has also been shown to affect dopamine production in the brain. We've mentioned this before you get a dopamine rush every time you get more likes on a post. So take back control of your attention and disable your notifications. I don't have notifications, even for whatsapp anymore, certainly not for any of my social media platforms. So if someone calls me it comes through. But anything else doesn't flash up as a buzz or anything on my screen or anything like that.

Exactly. So before I would pick up my phone, and I've noticed I've got a notification for Instagram an education for that, and either have to use willpower not to check it or interrupt my day and immediately check the latest update. And you don't need that in your life that's unnecessary. disable your notifications. And that way you take control and you're only checking social media and you're only checking your whatsapp when you want to when you have the time to respond. And it's so powerful to have that control back in your own life.

This is one of the social studies that we'll link to in the show notes as well. So they tested the effects of willpower. They filled the laboratory with the smell of baking cookies, and they had freshly baked cookies on the side. They split the students into two groups, one group were allowed to indulge in the cookies and then were asked to solve a series of tasks. The other group were asked to resist eating the cookies, but they could still smell them and see them and then they were asked to perform the same set of tasks. And the students who would use willpower to resist the cookies consistently performed worse than the students who are allowed to indulge

that that's just crazy to me because honestly, you would think it would be the other way around. This is why this stuff is so important to learn. The next thing that we're going to be talking about is reducing daily decisions. If you have too many decisions to make in one day, this can lead to decision fatigue. It's also best to automate the areas of your life that you struggle with the most. So by that, I mean, go easy on yourself where you can put things in place where you don't have to make any decisions at all. So why don't you take a leaf out of Steve Jobs book and create a wardrobe of clothes that look exactly the same, because then you don't actually have to make any decisions about what it is that you're going to wear.

I love the concept of a work wardrobe. There's a few key proponents of that people like Steve Jobs and his black turtlenecks, Mark Zuckerberg and his grey T shirts. Barack Obama traditionally only wore grey or blue suits in the office. And then a great inspiration for women because almost all the examples of men, but an example for women is Matilda Karl, who's the art director of Saatchi and Saatchi, and she wears black trousers and a white silk shirt every day to work. If you don't know who she is, check her out, she looks phenomenal. Another thing that you can do to reduce your decisions, and we've sort of touched on this a little bit before with food is meal planning. So meal planning where you plan in advance what meals you're going to have every day. So your shopping, is you can automate your shopping to buy exactly what foods you need. And then you know, every day what you're going to have and what you're going to need to cook. That's one less decision that you have to make. And it will help you stop making poor choices, like eating junk food, or buy McDonald's on your way home from work because the decision of what you're going to eat has already been made.

there's a really good book by Brian Tracy called Eat That Frog. And the basic concept is it's from an old saying that the first thing you do each morning is eat a live frog, you'll have the satisfaction knowing it's probably the worst that you'll do all day. I don't advocate eating alive frog. But the idea is if you get all your unpleasant tasks out of the way, eat your frogs, don't delay them. If you delay them, then those tasks are still there in the back of your mind, they're chipping away your mental energy, you will have to do them eventually anyway, to get them out of the way nice and early. And that will have such a positive impact on the rest of your day.

Yeah, and to be honest, is something that I used to really struggle with. And I don't actually struggle as much with this point anymore, because of that particular book that someone recommended me. So what we'll do is we'll stick the book in the show notes so that you can go and read it for yourself, because I think is a really, really good book to start with when you're thinking about making important decisions. And it really puts into perspective, you know, all the things that shell discussed, which is making sure that you do prioritise, eating that frog first thing in the morning.

The next thing is time blocking, actually working. Now this might sound a little bit tedious, but they both help to reduce decision fatigue. So time blocking is where you set structured blocks to do each task. So for example, you've got 30 minute blocks, check your tech and reply to your emails. And that's the only time of the day that you should be looking at your emails. A great proponent of this Elon Musk, he's known to schedule his whole day from waking to sleeping in five minute increments. Now that may sound a bit extreme. And that's probably a bit too far for me. And also, I think I would struggle with the concept of time blocking family time.

And you know, it may be a bit cold, you know, say you're spending time with your family, and you need to block segments of the day to visit them. But how many times do you actually spend sitting on your phone, or your family going to a different room, you've got so much time there, you're just basically procrastinating again. So this allows you to kind of set you to kind of set time just for those specific people. Because people are important you care about them, you want to spend time with them. But make sure that the time that you are spending with them is good quality time. And it's structured and you know that this is just going to be for my family now, not going to be the same and checking my phone, I'm not going to be there to buy things, I'm literally just going to be here to spend time with my family. So that might work for you too.

And the second part is batch working. Batch working where you concentrate on one set task or a group of related tasks that are between activities is really draining on your brainpower. Whereas if you stick focused on one activity, not flicking between activities will conserve your brainpower and lets you really focus on what you're doing. And the final point is diet. So decision fatigue really increases our temptation for junk food. We've discussed that and a poor diet. Low blood sugar has also been identified as exacerbating decision fatigue. This is something that both Sparky and I really have to work on constantly.