Why decisions exhaust us
What are you going to wear today?
How will you reply to all the WhatsApp messages you just received?
Which task will you start with at work?
And if you invite a friend to dinner, do you pick a casual neighborhood spot or the brand-new fancy place?
Every day, we make hundreds of micro-decisions.
And each one takes thinking effort - which costs energy and time.
How a decision works
For every decision, the process is the same:
identify the options, weigh pros and cons, then choose.
In an ultra-connected world, this mechanism is constantly stressed.
We face information overload and endless choice: full aisles of yogurt, hundreds of lodging options for a weekend trip, dozens of messages to process every day.
Decision fatigue, explained simply
The consequence of that accumulation is called decision fatigue.
By making micro-decisions all day, we drain our mental energy.
Result: we have less time and less clarity for decisions that actually matter - hiring someone, launching a project, or thinking seriously about our career.
Some researchers even talk about a limited "reservoir of good decisions."
The further you go into the day, the more you tend to pick the easy option.
Even if this theory is debated, one thing is obvious:
after a day full of decisions, you're tired, and you don't really feel like thinking hard about what to cook or what movie to watch.
Should you remove all micro-decisions?
Some people try to reduce the number of decisions they make to the minimum.
Mark Zuckerberg famously wore mostly gray t-shirts.
Steve Jobs had his black turtleneck.
Barack Obama wore mostly blue suits.
The idea is simple: keep your mental energy for important professional decisions.
But pushing this too far can become counterproductive.
If it means sacrificing your personal life for your professional life, it's probably excessive.
Learn to decide faster
Instead of eliminating every decision, a healthier approach is to decide faster, especially for small everyday choices.
Those micro-decisions are the little grains of sand that end up draining your energy.
Deliberately close your options
A first method is to create constraints.
For example, if you need to pick a bar for the evening, give yourself five minutes max to find a place and send it to the group.
Limiting available time limits the number of options you consider.
Pre-select once, reuse forever
Another very effective technique is to make a selection once, then reuse it.
For business lunches, for example, you can define a short list of reliable restaurants:
good food, reasonable prices, easy reservations.
Then every time you need to plan another lunch, you pick from that short list.
You save time and preserve mental energy.
Habits: the antidote to decision fatigue
In a world that constantly celebrates novelty, habits sometimes get a bad reputation.
But they are one of the best ways to reduce decision load.
Instead of looking for a new bar every time, you can pick a default place.
Instead of changing recipes every night, repeating the same dish sometimes even helps you improve it over time.
Habits free up energy for what matters.
Accept "good enough"
Finally, the best way to avoid decision fatigue is probably accepting that you don't always need the perfect choice.
Aim for good enough, not perfect.
The "best" restaurant might not be the top-rated one on Google. It might be the one you like, two blocks from home.
Sometimes trusting randomness is the best strategy.
What if fatigue also comes from lack of sleep?
Decision fatigue is tightly linked to your overall energy level.
Lack of sleep significantly degrades decision quality.
If you're interested, go deeper with
the power of sleep: sleep better to work better.
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