Decision fatigue. It causes us to make unhelpful or irrational decisions. The consequences in your business can be procrastination and not creating the outcomes you want. In your life, the consequences are procrastination and not creating the outcomes you want. Yes, the same result.
Decision fatigue will cause you to take the easy road or to procrastinate. And for those of us who have been on the personal development path for many years, you know how big a challenge it can be to overcome these two tendencies!
So, what is decision fatigue and how can we avoid it?
Decision fatigue is the deteriorating quality of decisions made by an individual after a long session of decision making. Given that we all make on average 35,000 decisions every day, you could say that towards the end of most days, we all have decision fatigue! It is at these moments that we decide not to go to the gym, to eat dessert, or simply to not do what we promised we would.
Sounds like it might create a few problems, right?
Yes. If you are creating new habits or banishing bad ones, then this is the crux of your challenge. Will power is a limited resource, so you need to rewire your decisions.
Here are 8 tips to prevent decision fatigue:
1. Cut out unnecessary decisions
You may already be familiar with the fact that Steve Jobs always wore the same thing to work each day. This was a conscious choice on his part to avoid making the decision of what to wear each morning. Sounds simple, but makes a big difference. You too can apply this approach to things in your life. Decide on things just once and then don’t make that decision again. Maybe having the same smoothie for breakfast or the same lunch. It eliminates one decision so you drop it from your mind knowing it’s already been decided.
2. Put the most important decisions and or tasks at beginning of the day
If our decisions are better at the beginning of the day, then you need to move the most important decisions and projects to your first priorities in the morning. Here is where the argument for avoiding email first thing is validated! All those decisions spent on correspondence and filing emails could be better spent on the decisions and tasks that will really generate your results.
3. Don’t delay decisions, schedule them if you have to
Never delaying a decision means what? It means you will free up so much space in your brain that is currently filled with the“might do that”,“will I or won’t I” and“must decide on that”. Having undecided things in our heads not only takes up a lot of space but adds to the decision fatigue. We have unnecessary“noise” in the background of our minds when we run back and forth over a decision. And each time we think of it, we’re increasing our decision fatigue. Don’t delay decisions. Make them once and drop them. If it’s really a big decision and you require time to think it through thoroughly, allocate specific time to weigh things up and make sure you set a deadline.
4. Schedule decision-making time
As I mentioned above, bigger decisions can require more time. Rather than let them loose while you go about your working week, schedule a specific time on your calendar to literally go through the decision-making process and make the final decision. This way you know you have time allocated to deal with it and will not have it floating around in your head.
5. Have a process for making decisions
So naturally what followsall this, is in scheduling decision time, you will want to run a big decision through a type of system. This is an efficient and effective way to manage the larger decisions we have to make from time to time. This will vary from person to person, but generally you should ensure you are aware of your core values(for a personal decision) and the company values(for a business decision. You can set a questionnaire, talk it through with your mentor/guru or take time out in nature- the process is up to you!
6. Drop some decisions altogether
Yes, you can drop a decision completely. You can do this by delegating or deleting. You may be able to delegate certain decisions that ultimately can be handled by your team/ partner. You can delete decisions that are no longer relevant or important to you.
7. Reframe the right/wrong approach
Somehow we have all been led to believe that decisions are either right or wrong. It’s all a matter of perspective. Whatever the outcome of your decision, the actual outcome is neutral. It is only what we think about the outcome that ultimately classifies it as “good” or “bad”. This is not an avoidance of accountability. This is accepting that a choice will create an outcome and there is no right or wrong outcome. There is just an outcome. Don’t agonise over a decision. There is not just one path to your destination, there are many, and you can get there with different decisions.
8. Leave it alone
Once you have made a decision about something, leave it alone. Don’t go back over it again second-guessing yourself. This is surely how most of us are creating the decision fatigue. We um and ah and say to ourselves “oh, I don’t know.” But, if you did know, what would it be? Don’t let yourself float in that cloud of so-called confusion which is actually self-created. Make the decision and have your own back. What’s the worst that can happen? You make a detour. It doesn’t work, you try something else. But make the decision once and follow through without second-guessing yourself first.