The Dangers Of Decision Fatigue

TRANSCRIPT AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED [00:00:00] Hey, Hey, so this week I wanted to dive into something that's super relevant at this time of year and that's decision fatigue we've got black Friday coming, holiday planning, coming, holiday gift giving, coming up. And we hit doing all of that in a recession, which means we have to make even more trade offs than we ever have before. Let's talk about the dangers of decision fatigue. Decision fatigue refers to the quality of decisions. Decreasing as the quantity of decisions increases. So you make worse decisions, the more decisions you have to And this can be affected by factors such as The complexity of the decisions that you have to make. If you have to make a lot of really, , complicated decisions that require a lot of thinking, that's going to SAP a lot more mental energy. It can be affected by how much willpower that decision needs. I think about how hard it is to say no to a juicy cheeseburger. . When you forced yourself to say yes to salad all day. Sometimes it can be physiological. There were studies done of a parole board that showed that the probability of getting a positive outcome started at about 65% at the beginning of the day. And that declined through the day to almost zero. Until they took a meal or a snack break. After that break, the positive outcomes bounced back to 65%. So how hungry you are, how much sleep you've had. With your feeling good or not? Really impacts your ability to make good decisions. And it can also be affected by mental drain. Right. So we know that at the moment we have so many spinning plates. What with pandemics, recessions, and now running into the holiday season. Usually [00:02:00] see people trying to manage decision fatigue by reducing the number of decisions. And those usual suspects all let's wear the same clothes. Let's eat the same food. And really let's get into a really strict routine. But I want you to take a step back and think about how many decisions you have made today since you woke up. That first decision being, do I hit snooze on the alarm clock? And from then on, everything is still a decision. Do I want coffee or tea? Do I want toast or oatmeal? Do I. Want to scroll social media or jump into work. We're making so many decisions every single day. So while these ideas might remove a couple of decisions, they're not going to cure decision fatigue. What they do is allow your brain to make better decisions on the important stuff. So we're not wasting energy on the trivial and our brains are fresh for that first big business decision of the day. Unfortunately, we will all experience decision fatigue. But the danger of decision fatigue is that when it kicks in one of two things happens. One, we avoid And we stick with the status quo. We stay in our comfort zone. And it feels like when not. Choosing to do anything. But actually doing nothing is still a decision. It's a decision to do what you've always done. and it's easy to see that that might not be the best decision. Or to we make impulsive decisions. Let's think about grocery We go into the grocery store. We make a million decisions. We choose all the healthy vege. We weigh up all the millions of trade-offs. We now have to make thank you, recession. And we arrive at the cashier and what's sitting there waiting for us. The candy. Would you have bought that chocolate? When you walked in No, you were still making great decisions about broccoli back then. But now. You're so tempted to buy. You've drained yourself of that capacity to make those good decisions. And so we choose impulsively. Again, impulsive decisions are really our [00:04:00] best. Option. So if decision fatigue is inevitable. Why are we here? While we still have to make decisions. Even if we're fatigued. So when we're in that state, it's easier to think about what is the next step in that decision. Then making the whole decision. I So Rather than just talking about decision fatigue as a problem, I wanted to give you a framework to make good decisions, even in the face of decision fatigue. This framework is going to walk you through how to define the problem, how to evaluate the options, what you might be doing unconsciously. To make less than ideal decisions, what to do if you can't decide and even how to live with your decisions. If you want to access to a framework designed to help you make decisions more easily, quickly and effectively, even in the face of decision fatigue , the Worksheet or my bonus episode on the ultimate decision fatigue, Busta, then you can head to Diane mayer.com forward slash decide the links in the show notes, and you can subscribe to the mini pop-up podcast.