Decision Fatigue

Brilliant Friends,

Decision-making burns resources as much as physical activity. It requires mind energy and biological fuel, sometimes as much as hiking a 14-mile trail or playing a two hour long game of football.

Tim Ferriss talks about the biological cost of each decision we make. We have a finite amount of decision making power per day, and it is essential to an effective life to allocate that resource wisely.

This probably is not the first time you’ve heard this principle, and you’ve probably dwelled upon and implemented it in your life.

So just like with physical performance, we can build up our capacity to make decisions and to make them better and better.

One tool for increasing decision making capacity is the 80/20 principle. I’ve found that certain people demand more of my resources than others, and it’s often not someone that I want to spend more of my decision making power on.

It’s important for me to triage the people, questions, concerns, and problems that I choose to engage, especially at the start of my day.

To do this, I have to be sharp with the responses I use to address people. If I determine that someone is bringing up a problem I choose not the address in the moment, I let them know that we’ll return to that later. The hard part is how to do that without making them feel bad, but sometimes I can’t worry about that.

To follow the 80/20 principle, I choose to spend 80% of my decision making energy on the 20% of problems that will make the most impact for my company, life, and well-being.

Having a set of premade decisions for common problems helps to conserve resources. For low-cost or low-level decisions, pick a route and stick to it every time you are confronted with the same or similar problem. This saves you the time, energy and attention it would have taken to weigh all the options every time. And you become more consistent.

For mid-level decisions, where the cost of a mistake is significant but not debilitating, it often comes down to a simple choice. Both sides, both possibilities, both forks in the road could be good options, and it simply comes down to the one you choose. For these problems, practice going with your gut feeling.

Trust your intuition, feel out the right one, and make the call. Don’t second guess yourself. Don’t waste resources.

For the high-level, high cost, irreversible decisions, put all your time, effort, and attention into making the right choice. Sometimes it will never reveal itself to you as the correct decision, but you can conclude that it was the best possible thing to do.

And that’s what matters at the end of the day.

Let me know your thoughts.

To powerful living,

Steve

Click below to hear Tim Ferriss’ podcast on How to Avoid Decision Fatigue

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-44-how-to-avoid-decision/id863897795?i=325332026&mt=2

Wikipedia article on Decision Fatigue http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_fatigue#cite_note-NYT_mag_story-1

A BULLETPROOF® article on Decision Fatigue caused by poor nutrition and how it traps people in poverty https://www.bulletproofexec.com/why-eating-saps-your-willpower/