Have you ever found yourself feeling exhausted and mentally drained after making a series of decisions? This is a phenomenon known as decision fatigue, and it can have a significant impact on your ability to make good decisions.
Decision fatigue occurs when your ability to make effective decisions is depleted due to the number of decisions you have already made.
To identify decision fatigue, you may notice that you feel mentally exhausted, have difficulty focusing, or find it hard to make even simple decisions. You may also find that you start to procrastinate or make impulsive decisions.
Decision fatigue occurs because human brains have a limited capacity for making decisions. Every decision you make requires energy and resources, and as you make more decisions, your resources become depleted.
Research has shown that decision fatigue can also impact your ability to regulate your emotions. This is because your brains use the same resources to regulate your emotions as they do to make decisions.
Fortunately, there are several strategies you can use to combat decision fatigue and improve your decision-making abilities.
One strategy is to limit the number of decisions you make in a given day. This can be done by delegating decisions to others, or by simplifying your routines and eliminating unnecessary decisions.
Another strategy is to take breaks throughout the day to recharge your mental resources. This can be as simple as taking a walk or meditating for a few minutes.
Finally, getting enough sleep and maintaining a healthy diet and exercise routine can also help to improve your decision-making abilities and reduce decision fatigue.
Many successful people have developed techniques for avoiding decision fatigue. For example, former U.S. President Barack Obama was known for wearing only gray or blue suits, which eliminated the need for him to make decisions about what to wear each day.
Another example is Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who has been known to wear the same outfit every day, in order to eliminate the need to make decisions about his wardrobe.
Some successful people also use a technique known as decision batching, where they group similar decisions together in order to conserve mental resources. For example, they may only check their email once or twice a day, rather than constantly throughout the day.
Start identifying when you get decision fatigue, you will be surprised how often it happens.
Tomorrow… I’ll let you know about another decision making stopper…