What are you going to have for breakfast today? What color socks will you put on today? Which 1 movie (out of the 4.000) are you going to watch on Netflix tonight? Should you accept the friend request on Facebook from your co-worker?
Will you read this article till the end or did you already start to scan and skim…?
We make choices about what to eat, drink, buy, do or not do. These choices start at the moment we wake up and get out of bed (or choose to hit the snooze button), until the moment we decide to go to sleep. All of these choices have consequences on our emotional, financial and physical well-being, good or bad.
According to research in 2013, the amount of choices that we need to make on a single day has increased to a staggering 35.000 (!). If you consider that you don’t make choices when you sleep, with an average sleep time of 8 hours, that leaves 2.000 decisions per hour or 1 decision every 2 seconds.
“You will see I wear only gray or blue suits, I’m trying to pare down decisions. I don’t want to make decisions about what I’m eating of wearing. Because I have too many other choices to make.” – President Obama (2012)
A major influence on the amount of choices we daily have to make is the internet, in which the volume of information has increased exponentially. As of January 2020, there are 1.74 billion websites and 571 new websites are created every minute. With the expanded volume of available information, so has the amount of daily choices increased.
The accumulation of all of these choices per day can lead to an overwhelming feeling and make you ‘decision fatigue’. This concept of ‘decision fatigue’, defined by social psychologist Dr. Roy Baumeister, details how people struggle with making choices, after they have made too many decisions within a given time frame. When we have too many choices, we become overwhelmed and make a bad choice or no choice at all. For example, when we have made some tough decisions during the day, then we may find ourselves not being able to choose what we will have for dinner. As a result, you might end up at a fast food restaurant rather than enjoying a healthy meal. (Luckily, my wife helps me with the dinner choices :))
You can counter your level of decision fatigue by either one of below 3 strategies (or use them all):
1: Plan in advance
Former US president Barack Obama only wore grey or blue suits. And he is not the only one. Steve Jobs always wore a black turtleneck, jeans and New Balance sneakers, whereas Mark Zuckerberg usually wears a grey Brunello t-shirt. These inspiring leaders decided to not use their mental capacity for small decisions, rather they use it to serve millions of people.
Most decisions that we make are choices we make every day, like what to wear or what to eat, what to do or not to do. Making these decisions over and over again, increases our level of decision fatigue.
By planning your day on the night before, you will give yourself more mental space for the important choices on the next day. Before every (work)day, review your productivity planner and consider the following:
- What will you have for breakfast?
- What clothes will you put on? What clothes do you want your kids to wear?
- What activity will you do first? What can you do later during the day?
2: Make important decisions in the morning
A study on 1.100 parole board decisions in Israel showed a real-life example of decision fatigue. The researchers found that not the sort of crime committed, nor the length of the sentence nor the ethnicity of the offender played a role in the parole approval rate. It was the time when the prisoner was brought in front of the board that determined the outcome:
- Prisoners who appeared early in the morning received parole about 70 percent of the time.
- Prisoners who appeared late in the day were paroled less than 10 percent of the time.
The judges were experiencing decision fatigue later in the day, leading to quick decisions and thus rejection of parole. This shows that good decision making is a state which evolves during the day.
Like the parole board, the best decisions are made first thing in the morning, when you can focus your attention and energy on the decision that is most important to your life.
3: Delegate
The last strategy to reduce your decision fatigue is to delegate decisions, which can be done similar to delegating tasks. You can delegate decisions at work, or ask friends or family to help you with decision making. As manager, you can delegate decisions to your team. As employee, you can ask your coworkers to (help you) make the decision. As parent, you can delegate certain decisions to your children. Same holds for your friends or family, you can ask them to make certain decisions.
“If you want to hire great people and have them stay working for you, you have to let them make a lot of decisions.” – Steve Jobs
For me, as said, my wife makes most of the decisions regarding what we have for dinner, so that helps to reduce my decision fatigue. Next to that, I sometimes ask my friends or family to make decisions for me, for example on where to go out to. At work, I consult with my team for the best decision. In work cases when I delegate decisions, I intend to search for win-win situation: I ask someone who gets energized and who likes to solve the case and make a decision.
There are of course many other strategies or habits to reduce your level of decision fatigue. I’m curious to learn what habits you rely upon to reduce the choices that you need to make?
Photo credit: Victoriano Izquierdo
What are you going to have for breakfast today? What color socks will you put on today? Which 1 movie (out of the 4.000) are you going to watch on Netflix tonight? Should you accept the friend request on Facebook from your co-worker?
Will you read this article till the end or did you already start to scan and skim…?
We make choices about what to eat, drink, buy, do or not do. These choices start at the moment we wake up and get out of bed (or choose to hit the snooze button), until the moment we decide to go to sleep. All of these choices have consequences on our emotional, financial and physical well-being, good or bad.
According to research in 2013, the amount of choices that we need to make on a single day has increased to a staggering 35.000 (!). If you consider that you don’t make choices when you sleep, with an average sleep time of 8 hours, that leaves 2.000 decisions per hour or 1 decision every 2 seconds.
“You will see I wear only gray or blue suits, I’m trying to pare down decisions. I don’t want to make decisions about what I’m eating of wearing. Because I have too many other choices to make.” – President Obama (2012)
A major influence on the amount of choices we daily have to make is the internet, in which the volume of information has increased exponentially. As of January 2020, there are 1.74 billion websites and 571 new websites are created every minute. With the expanded volume of available information, so has the amount of daily choices increased.
The accumulation of all of these choices per day can lead to an overwhelming feeling and make you ‘decision fatigue’. This concept of ‘decision fatigue’, defined by social psychologist Dr. Roy Baumeister, details how people struggle with making choices, after they have made too many decisions within a given time frame. When we have too many choices, we become overwhelmed and make a bad choice or no choice at all. For example, when we have made some tough decisions during the day, then we may find ourselves not being able to choose what we will have for dinner. As a result, you might end up at a fast food restaurant rather than enjoying a healthy meal. (Luckily, my wife helps me with the dinner choices :))
You can counter your level of decision fatigue by either one of below 3 strategies (or use them all):
1: Plan in advance
Former US president Barack Obama only wore grey or blue suits. And he is not the only one. Steve Jobs always wore a black turtleneck, jeans and New Balance sneakers, whereas Mark Zuckerberg usually wears a grey Brunello t-shirt. These inspiring leaders decided to not use their mental capacity for small decisions, rather they use it to serve millions of people.
Most decisions that we make are choices we make every day, like what to wear or what to eat, what to do or not to do. Making these decisions over and over again, increases our level of decision fatigue.
By planning your day on the night before, you will give yourself more mental space for the important choices on the next day. Before every (work)day, review your productivity planner and consider the following:
- What will you have for breakfast?
- What clothes will you put on? What clothes do you want your kids to wear?
- What activity will you do first? What can you do later during the day?
2: Make important decisions in the morning
A study on 1.100 parole board decisions in Israel showed a real-life example of decision fatigue. The researchers found that not the sort of crime committed, nor the length of the sentence nor the ethnicity of the offender played a role in the parole approval rate. It was the time when the prisoner was brought in front of the board that determined the outcome:
- Prisoners who appeared early in the morning received parole about 70 percent of the time.
- Prisoners who appeared late in the day were paroled less than 10 percent of the time.
The judges were experiencing decision fatigue later in the day, leading to quick decisions and thus rejection of parole. This shows that good decision making is a state which evolves during the day.
Like the parole board, the best decisions are made first thing in the morning, when you can focus your attention and energy on the decision that is most important to your life.
3: Delegate
The last strategy to reduce your decision fatigue is to delegate decisions, which can be done similar to delegating tasks. You can delegate decisions at work, or ask friends or family to help you with decision making. As manager, you can delegate decisions to your team. As employee, you can ask your coworkers to (help you) make the decision. As parent, you can delegate certain decisions to your children. Same holds for your friends or family, you can ask them to make certain decisions.
“If you want to hire great people and have them stay working for you, you have to let them make a lot of decisions.” – Steve Jobs
For me, as said, my wife makes most of the decisions regarding what we have for dinner, so that helps to reduce my decision fatigue. Next to that, I sometimes ask my friends or family to make decisions for me, for example on where to go out to. At work, I consult with my team for the best decision. In work cases when I delegate decisions, I intend to search for win-win situation: I ask someone who gets energized and who likes to solve the case and make a decision.
There are of course many other strategies or habits to reduce your level of decision fatigue. I’m curious to learn what habits you rely upon to reduce the choices that you need to make?
Photo credit: Victoriano Izquierdo
