Decision Fatigue

We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run over.

~Aneurin Bevan

So many entrepreneurs and managers have to make a continuum of decisions. So many people are so dependent on these decisions to be right as their well-being and their family’s well-being depends on this. However, there is more research coming out showing that making too many decisions can lead to poor decisions.

Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg have more in common than both being CEO’s of dynamic companies as they both wore the same clothes to work each day. When Zuckerberg was asked, “Why do you wear the same T-shirt every day?” He responded by saying, “I want to clear my life to make it so that I have to make as few decisions as possible…”

One other great example to demonstrate this point was a recent study in the National Academy of Sciences. In this study researchers, looked at 1,112 decisions made by a parole board judge over a 10-month period. What they found that time of day, or before decision fatigue sets in, the judge was likely to give a ruling favorable to the criminal 65% of the time. However, as the morning wore on, the probability of the criminal getting a favorable ruling dropped to almost zero. Then after lunch would jump back up to 65% and then fall as the back to the zero level at the end of day.

What was happening here, the researchers suggest, was that, as the judge got tired or lost his willpower to make the correct decision and the judge would reject each of the parole applications. The judge knew this was an easier decision and did not require much debate if the criminal deserved to be released or not. The judge just reached the point of decision fatigue when the judge was no longer willing to make the tough decisions. Now of course this is just one judge and the concept of decision fatigue needs to be further studied.

On a personal note, I cannot tell you the number of times when I have been out with a group of people, I have said, “You guys make the decisions as I just do not want to in charge.”

Given that decision fatigue is real, what can you do about it?

The first thing you can do is to make sure you plan to make decisions the night before on decisions that can easily be done and will not tax your willpower the following day. Some of these things will be what should I wear in the morning, what should I have for breakfast, and what do I need to do after work (e.g. stop at the grocery store). Obviously, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg got this point.

The second thing you can do to use great time management and cut out interruptions as they just kill your day and normally require continual decision-making. One neat thing to help in this is to ask every staff person that comes to you for a decision what they would do. This puts the onus on them to come up with a solution before they see you and this will cut out interruptions and decisions drastically.

The third thing is to keep your blood sugar up by constantly eating something (every two hours). This will stop you from getting tired and losing your willpower.

Finally, the fourth thing you can do is simplify your life. I think there is a difference between important tasks to be done and urgent things to do. Try to delegate as much as you can of the urgent items and try to concentrate on just the important items. Ask yourself as much as possible why you are doing a specific task. If the reason does not fit into your corporate or personal goals then just jettison the task.

Decision fatigue is real and there is much you can do to help yourself through this process. Additionally, it is so important to recognize the symptoms of this type of behavior before it becomes debilitating.

You can do this!!