Are you Suffering from Decision Fatigue?

I must say, something that has become less of a problem for me during lockdown life is 'decision fatigue’. In our consumer-based society, where there are endless options in every aspect of our life, decision fatigue can become a real issue. This is when your ability to make good quality decisions becomes impaired the more decisions you have to make, big or small. 

Think of your brain in terms of your phone battery - most likely fully charged in the morning and then with each decision you make you use up a little bit of the charge each time. Until eventually you are out of charge and vulnerable to making poor, impulsive decisions - or maybe you opt out altogether and don’t make any decisions at all. 

The thing is, lockdown has removed a lot of choice from us in many different ways. With our freedom restricted we haven’t had the same level of opportunity to make decisions. I first noticed this when the supermarket shelves were being stripped bare as people panic bought. A choice of 30 different hand soaps was reduced to 2 – fantastic! Soap is soap right? Can’t get my preferred brand of bread - I’ll take whatever I can get! Then as shops and services began to close, my ability to make trivial choices became less and less.  

I quite liked this. Instead of being panicked by scarcity, I felt a freedom from continuous inconsequential choices that all used a little bit of energy each time. Even when it comes to decisions about what to do on a certain day in lockdown... ‘Well I can sit in the house or I can go for a walk, or both. Great - I’ll do both then’… simple! 

Minimalism and simplicity can combine in many areas of our lives to save mental energy and give us more peace. It makes sense to strip out the unnecessary decisions to allow us to preserve energy for the decisions that really matter, at work or in our personal lives.

Just think about it, all those little decisions add up. Say you get up for work and you have to decide what to wear that day. Next you might stop off before the office to pick up a coffee and are faced with over a hundred little decisions about how you take your coffee. You head into work and continue to make lots of decisions, big and small. Then it’s lunchtime – so you might decide to go to somewhere like Subway and order a customised Sub that involves another 50 micro decisions. You feel like a bar of chocolate after lunch, it’s the same again.

No wonder when you are in an important meeting that afternoon you are not quite bringing your best quality decision making to the conference table. After work you get home and you have endless options of what to make for dinner. Then perhaps you sit flicking through infinite options on Netflix, not quite able to decide on what to watch. All the while your percentage brain capacity is going through the floor. It makes sense why a lot of healthy habits go out the window later in the evening – willpower and motivation are overpowered by decision fatigue and you reach for that glass of wine or that extra packet of biscuits. Sound familiar?

So what can we do to reduce decision fatigue?

· The key is to simplify and minimise wherever you can and build routine and structure into your life. It might sound boring and some personality types are more resistant to routine than others. However, everyone can decide how much structure they need on an individual basis. You can also still allow for flexibility within that structure. That is all up to you.

For example, if I know that I go to the gym Monday – Friday at 9am, then I don’t need to make that decision when I get up in the morning, it’s just what I do. The more ingrained the healthy behaviour becomes, the less mental energy it takes to do. This is because it’s habitual, and the brain loves habitual behaviour (good or bad) as it expends the least energy. That’s why it’s so important to set up a good routine and break the pattern of bad or unhealthy routines. With the right habits and structure in place you are less likely to make poor decisions on the things that are important to you.

· One great tip that even Obama swore by when he was in Office, is to simplify clothing choices. “You’ll see I wear only gray or blue suits,” [Obama] said. “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.” This is something that I did a while ago and it made a huge difference. How many times have you felt despair standing in front of a packed wardrobe, ready to cancel your entire day because you can’t find the right thing to wear? By stripping out clothing choices and paring down outfit options, you end up with a capsule wardrobe of your signature style and can create your own daily ‘uniform’, saving both time and mental energy.

· It might also be a good idea for you to make important decisions in the morning. One study even showed that judges were less likely to grant parole in the afternoon than in the morning. To make the most of your day, take time to plan the night before. You can decide ahead of time what your priorities are for the next day (both business and personal) and schedule time to work on them first thing so that they get your full mental ‘charge’.

· Oh, and don’t make decisions on an empty stomach. The hormone Ghrelin is produced when we are hungry and has been shown in several studies to be linked to making more impulsive and poor decisions. We can all recognise this in relation to food choices. However, this impulsive decision making extends beyond food choices according to these studies.

· It’s also been shown that people who their limit their food choices when trying to lose weight can be more successful. By sticking to structured eating, whilst allowing for slight variations within the plan, it can be easier to stay on track. It sets up the habits and structure that we spoke about earlier. This means that there is less room for bad decisions when faced with endless choices of what to eat. As long as you are meeting your nutritional requirements in your diet and are enjoying the foods you are eating, variety can be overrated in terms of achieving certain goals.

Have a look at your life and notice all the micro decisions you are making unnecessarily in a day – carry out an audit and decide where you can save time and energy by streamlining and creating structure. Managing our minds is not just about managing our negative thoughts and self-talk, it’s about being smart about where we direct our precious reserves of mental energy too. One of the things I’m taking from Lockdown is how beneficial this actually is.