How to beat decision fatigue

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

It is impossible to say exactly how many decisions we make every day (according to some estimates, about 35,000). Salt dinner? Which radio station should I turn on? Walk around the table to the left or right? Even the most innocuous decisions drain our willpower, tire us out and motivate us.

How do you deal with decision fatigue? There are three strategies:

• reduce the number of solutions;
• develop an algorithm for making a decision;
• create a comfortable routine.

Let's consider them in more detail. By applying at least one piece of advice from each strategy, you will noticeably increase your productivity.

Strategy # 1. Make Fewer Decisions

Nutrition

In one study, we make an average of 226 food decisions per day. … The simplest meal plan will save you a lot of effort and will not only come in handy for bodybuilders.

Start by writing down what you eat during the week. Notice how much you eat, what you prefer, when you usually feel hungry. Based on these observations, develop an approximate nutritional plan and gradually adjust it.

1. Don't forget variety.
2. Preparing even simple meals like sandwiches in advance will save time.
3. If you don't want to cook everything at home, make a list of your favorite cafes and restaurants and plan ahead where you will eat all week.

Wardrobe

Many legendary people, like Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg, always wear the same clothes. It is very convenient: once you have chosen what to wear, and no longer waste time on it.

If this is too categorical for you, use these tips.

1. Move away from anything that you are not currently wearing, such as clothing that is out of season.
2. Divide things into categories. If all the shirts or blouses hang together, you don't have to look for them among other clothing items.
3. Prepare ahead of time. In the evening, check the weather forecast for the next day, choose the right clothes and put them in a prominent place.

Shopping

Every time we go to the store, we have to deal with hundreds of solutions. To reduce their number, use the following tips.

1. Make a list of the essentials. It should include everything that you use on an ongoing basis, including specific information, such as the size of the package. Before going to the store, mark what you already have.
2. Add to the current list constantly. In order not to forget anything (and not to buy anything extra), add items to the list when you notice that stocks are running out. Such a list may include the necessary things that we do not buy very often (toothpaste, light bulbs), or one-time purchases (gifts).
3. Pick one brand. By identifying your favorite brands and not being distracted by products from other manufacturers, you will save a lot of time and effort.
4. Make a shopping list based on the location of the items in the store. For example, if fresh vegetables and fruits are close to the entrance, put them at the top of the list. This will significantly reduce the time spent in the store.
5. Go to the store less often. Instead of running into the store every night, buy everything in one go, for example on weekends.
6. Cut down on online shopping. Nothing hurts productivity more than a morning spent trying to select one product from thousands of products that match your request on AliExpress.

Communication

Spending a lot of time with indecisive people can drain your decision-making ability. Try to communicate more often with those who will not constantly shift decision-making to you.

Of course, it is impossible to completely exclude communication with indecisive people. Try to change your approach to them.

1. Take turns taking decisions. It is easier for people to make choices when they know that you will share the burden. If you often have to decide something together, offer to do it one at a time.
2. Ask for two options. Sometimes indecisive people do not offer one or another option, fearing that it will damage their reputation. So ask them to suggest two options and choose one of them.
3. Praise them. It's always nice when someone praises our choice. Then the next time the solution will be easier.

Computer work

When we work at a computer, we make a lot of seemingly imperceptible decisions. Here's how to fix it.

1. Change the look of the new tab. Every time we open a new tab in the browser, we see frequently visited pages, bookmarks or even advertisements - all this forces us to choose and make decisions. Change the appearance of the new tab to show some inspiring picture, or make it empty altogether.
2. Simplify the look of your desktop. If your desktop is littered with documents and shortcuts, you have to decide each time whether to open them or not. Put all documents in a folder (at least "Documents"). If there are a lot of them, take the time and sort them out.
3. Hide rarely used applications. If, in order to launch an application on a smartphone or tablet, you first need to find it among a bunch of shortcuts, then you again have to make unnecessary decisions. Create a folder (or set up a separate screen) for rarely used applications, and leave only the most important in plain sight.

Strategy # 2. Develop a decision-making algorithm

Simply by reducing the number of decisions in your life, you will not get rid of the problem completely. To reduce stress, develop your own decision-making process.

Break each solution into two options

Charles Duhigg, in his book The Eight Rules of Efficiency: Smarter, Faster, Better, advises breaking every possible choice into two.

Consider, for example, a situation where you need to quickly decide where to dine.

1. Eating at home or in a restaurant? At the restaurant.
2. Take food with you or sit at a table? At the table. (It remains to resolve the issue with the price.)
3. An expensive restaurant or an establishment with average prices? With averages. (Most likely, only two or three of your favorite restaurants meet these criteria.)
4. Mexican or Italian food? Mexican. (That's all!)

Use lists of out-of-the-box solutions

Atul Gawande wrote a whole book on the benefits of checklists, including that he said that US Air Force pilots are equipped with checklists for all occasions. They outline the steps to be taken in a particular critical situation.

Try to make such lists for yourself. Over the course of the week, write down what solutions you faced and what ended up choosing. For example:

• what questions potential clients always ask you and what do you answer;
• what issues always have to be solved at home;
• what invitations do you usually refuse.

At the end of the week, look at what decisions are often made and create a simple table of answers. The next time you need to make a decision, just take a look at your spreadsheet. Over time, you will remember it and will spend even less time making decisions.

Plan your decision

As you prepare for your new day, consider the following tips.

1. Schedule challenging work in the morning. Willpower is depleted with every decision made. The strength model of self-control., so spend it wisely.
2. Make decisions after eating. According to some studies, willpower is highly dependent on glucose levels. Self-control relies on glucose as a limited energy source: Willpower is more than a metaphor. … Therefore, schedule important meetings for the afternoon. Also, try to have a snack every hour or two while you work.
3. Schedule simple tasks for the evening. For example, deciding what to wear tomorrow. You can kill an hour to choose the “perfect” outfit, so leave that for the evening when you’re too tired to waste time looking for the best one.

Determine the price of each solution

Very often we waste our willpower on useless financial decisions. For example, for half an hour we choose which shampoo to buy, a little more expensive or a little cheaper, or we doubt whether to spend money on gatherings with friends. At the same time, we do not realize that all this costs us productivity.

Researchers at Princeton University found that in-store price comparison drains the ability to control one's behavior Economic Decision-making in Poverty Depletes Behavioral Control. … Therefore, we are drawn to snack on something sweet during long shopping trips.

Here are three steps to help you price each solution.

1. Set a value for your time. Moreover, it should be high, for example, 100 rubles per minute.
2. Determine how much money is at stake. For example, if you can save about 100 rubles on shampoo, do not spend more than one minute choosing it.
3. Trust your intuition. Make decisions quickly and be glad you saved time and willpower.

Plan ahead

There are decisions to be made every few days or weeks. If you're always in doubt about which movie to watch or what to wear, plan ahead. For example, here are five areas that you can simplify and automate.

Nutrition

Make a meal plan for the month ahead. Not only write down what dishes you will cook, but also prepare lists of necessary foods right away.

Entertainment

Make lists of books, movies, and music so you don't have to decide what to read, watch, and listen to every day.

Workout

Plan your workouts ahead of time, including not only your usual exercises, but also something new in the plan.

Present

To avoid running around the shops a few days before the holidays, take a couple of hours and jot down gift ideas for the whole year ahead.

Dates

Think in advance where to go with your soul mate. This may sound too pragmatic, but when you run out of ideas, you can always look at this list and find something interesting.

Strategy # 3. Create Your Own Routine

To be more productive, you need to turn some of your actions into templates. Each such pattern will simplify (or eliminate) one or more solutions. Of course, this does not mean that you need to turn into a robot or that all days should be similar to each other. However, a prepared routine will save you a ton of time.

Morning and evening rituals

We are especially vulnerable in the morning. We still have plenty of willpower, and if we waste it on small decisions, then it will be harder for us during the day. In the evening, willpower and the ability to make decisions, on the contrary, are depleted, so there is a high probability that you will sit up late watching TV shows or reading some nonsense on the Internet.

Here's a simplified way to create morning and evening rituals.

1. Define a trigger. For most people, the morning ritual begins with the alarm, which is their trigger. You can have any other, as long as it is repeated every day. The evening ritual can begin from the moment you arrive home.
2. Decide on your reward. If there is no reward awaiting you after the ritual, it will be much more difficult for you to observe it. You can enter a reward immediately after the ritual (for example, a cup of coffee in the morning, dessert in the evening) or move to the end of the ritual what you are already doing with pleasure (workout in the morning, reading a book in the evening).
3. Identify specific steps. Think ahead and write them down. You must know what you will be doing every minute of the ritual. But don't stretch it, 45 minutes is the maximum.
4. Remove all obstacles. Think about what might be holding you back during your morning or evening ritual, and try to eliminate those causes. The fewer obstacles you have, the fewer decisions you have to make and the easier and faster everything will turn out.
5. Practice.

Workout

Exercise isn't just good for your health. One study found that exercising increases our productivity The association between work performance and physical activity, cardiorespiratory fitness, and obesity. …

Instead of deciding whether or not to go to the gym every day and worrying about it, use the advice of famous blogger James Clear: Create a rule for yourself.

I don't rely on my willpower, I don't expect to be able to force myself to go to the gym. It's just the place I always go to on Monday nights.

James Clear

Here are some more tips.

1. Do less. Reduce the amount of training to the required minimum, and also reduce the number of days when you exercise. This will make it easier for you to stick to your schedule.
2. Plan for a month. If you are not sure how to last for a whole month, shorten your training time even more.
3. Be prepared to change your routine. If some unforeseen circumstances disrupted it, do not skip the workout, move it to another time.

Communication

Remember how often someone texts you in the middle of the day and invites you to go out somewhere in the evening, and you have to spend time making a decision. It takes precious energy and willpower that you could spend on solving work issues. But it would be much more pleasant to spend time with friends, without forcing yourself to make decisions.

Of course, not everyone will like the idea of planning time with family and friends in advance. This approach can seem cold and unfeeling. But for some, it will help to spend more time with loved ones and not feel guilty at the same time.

• Plan time with the people who are important to you. Every week, coordinate with your friends a convenient meeting time for everyone and mark it in your calendar.
• Ignore everything else. Do not attend an event if it was not planned in advance (of course, with the exception of some kind of force majeure).

You will look forward to the time with your friends, and all unexpected invitations will be able to answer with a clear conscience: "No, but I can tomorrow / weekend / next week."

List of basic tasks for the week

Make it a rule to make a list of basic tasks every week. Include up to the three most important things to do for each day of the week.

1. Start with a big goal. Define a specific goal for the year that you are striving for. So you will know exactly what is most important for you in the near future.
2. Determine the next steps. Each month, ask yourself what steps you can take towards your goal, and break them down into a to-do list. From there, you can select tasks for the week.
3. Distribute the load. Once you have a rough schedule for the week, add important tasks for each day. Don't fill your weekly plan with small things. The fewer things planned for the day, the fewer decisions you have to make.
4. Take time to evaluate. At the end of the work week, measure your progress and set goals for the next week. It takes only 20 minutes for this.

To-do list for the day

Keep the following points in mind when making your list for the day.

• Include downtime. If you add this time to your schedule, you won't have to decide which case to move in order to complete an urgent assignment or deal with an unexpected problem. If you have some free time, just proceed to the next item on the list.
• Maintain a list of current tasks. Add tasks to this list as soon as they come to your mind. So you will definitely not forget anything.

Finally

This approach has a huge advantage: you know exactly what you are doing every minute of every day. And since you've built workout, free time, and socializing into your schedule, you can enjoy these activities without feeling guilty. And most importantly, you do not have to make decisions every day: you have already decided everything before starting work.

After all, it is a crime to waste planned work time on unplanned tasks, especially on such tedious ones as deciding what to do next.