How to Defeat Decision Fatigue

For those that don't know what Decision Fatigue is, it's basically when your decision tank is running on empty. Some brainy people have a theory that the human brain can only make a certain amount of decisions before having to take a break to refuel. Realistically, you refuel when you're asleep. From what we know, we make around 35,000 decision every day. Unbelievable really.

Nevertheless, when we have to make decision after decision, and choice after choice, we start to run out of good decision juice. Let's say you get home after a hard day and you are trying to decide on something to eat. How many times have you been stuck on this single task? So much so, that you tell yourself to "screw it", and you grab something from the local fast food chain not far from your house. In the short term, it seems like a great idea, but I think we all know that it's not the best decision you could have made. This is caused by decision fatigue.

So how do we combat this and make better decisions all the time?

We're definitely not experts, but we've found through our research into this topic is to simply make less decisions throughout the day, leaving more in the tank for when you need it. Sounds simple, right?

In order to do this though, we'll need to automate some unimportant tasks. Let's take Steve Jobs for an example - he wore the same clothes everyday. He did this because it was simply a decision he didn't have to make. Mark Zuckerberg is the same.

Why not try and pick our your clothes ahead of time, perhaps the night before? You can also do it with meals. We've been trying batch cooking - creating lunch and dinner meals for the whole week, and to be truthful, I can't believe I didn't do it before. It's a brilliant idea.

I tried to take note of the number of decisions I made in a day, using a clicker, and I got over 400. However, once I started automating certain aspects of my life (the boring and unimportant tasks), one week later I tried again, only catching 150 or so. I definitely felt better that day - less tired, and I feel like I made better decisions (although that could have been a placebo).

Give it a go. What could go wrong?