Decision Fatigue and the Bandwidth Dilemma
On average, an American adult makes 35,000 decisions per day (Sollisch). Whether it is choosing which mustard you want at the grocery store, or a major leadership decision, our mental decision-making network does not prioritize.
The capacity of the human mind is difficult to fathom, with a memory equal to 2.5 petabytes (the equivalent of 2.5 million gigabytes of memory), so what is the problem?
On any given day, your mind has a finite number of decisions it can make regardless of the importance of them.
Whether it is which socks to wear or what marketing strategy to implement next, each involves a series of decisions that diminish your decision bank for the day. That number will vary depending on the individual, the current demands on them, and how well that individual is taking care of their mind. The repeated act of decision making impairs your ability to control the quality of decisions that follow in a phenomenon scientists called decision-fatigue.
We live in an environment of an explosion of choices and information overload.
Have you gotten the end of the day, decided to watch Netflix, scrolled for an hour unable to choose a show, and finally just gone to bed?
Just choosing what to eat every day involves a tremendous number of choices.
See if this sounds familiar.
There are dozens of recipes online. You scroll through them hoping one will catch your eye but get overwhelmed and choose the last one.
From that recipe, you make a list of and head to the grocery store.
In 1976, a typical grocery store had 9,000 unique products. Today’s grocery stores can carry 40,000 items! This requires us to ignore 39,995 items to get the 5 items you actually need for the recipe.
There are literally hundreds of mustards to choose from and you have to sort through all of them to identify the one in the recipe…and they don’t have it. You finally abandon the recipe and decide to head to the grab-and-go section of the deli to see another ocean of choices. It is even more overwhelming than the mustard aisle, and you walk out of the store and head for the drive-through.
The decision to ignore is also a decision.
All of this ignoring and deciding has a cost. Facing so many trivial decisions in daily life creates neurofatigue and results in poorer impulse control and lack of judgment. Also compromised is the ability to make trade-offs. Cognitively exhausted minds prefer a passive role in the decision-making process, and often make impulsive or irrational choices.
Other consequences include
decreased belief in your capacity to make good decisions (self-efficacy)
susceptibility to bias
decisional conflict
failure to recognize opportunities
decision regret
This type of fatigue also impairs executive function.
Executive function is the capacity to plan ahead, meet goals, maintain self-control, avoid getting derailed when interrupted, and to stay focused in the midst of distractions, to name a few.
What are some warning signs that you might do something unwise because of brain fatigue?
Healthline has a list of more classic signs of decision fatigue.
Procrastination. “I’ll tackle this later.”
Impulsivity. “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe…”
Avoidance. “I can’t deal with this right now.”
Indecision. “When in doubt, I just say ‘no.'” (or yes)
So what is the solution?
Preserve your brain bandwidth and energy by consciously directing your thoughts and actions. This includes mental and physical self-care and the use of heuristics. Self-care is a necessary component to prevent cognitive overload. Protect your energy organically with enough sleep, exercise, and healthy nutrition. Give yourself breaks from making decisions and let others help. Heuristics are mental shortcuts that are used to simplify problems and avoid cognitive fatigue. Create an approach that prioritizes a few crucial decisions per day and minimizes low stakes decisions. Stay in a consistent routine and automate as much as you can.
Our brains are configured to make a certain number of decisions per day, regardless of their importance. Billionaires and highly successful people recognize this and often adopt a uniform style to keep that decision drain low. From Obama to Zuckerberg, they recognize the economy of simplification. When intense situations arrive, the trivial decisions are dropped to focus fully on the situation at hand. Elon Musk, Tesla's billionaire CEO, wore the same clothes for five days before reaching the Model 3 production goal.
Women always have a far more complex situation when approaching what to wear, but this means they should be even more intentional about adopting a simple approach to that process. Clarify a unique style that is effortless, yet exudes confidence and power. This reserves energy for the most important thing to bring, your charisma. Protecting your threshold for decisions is part of managing modern life successfully and we all benefit from simplifying our overloaded lives.
Important takeaway: Brain resources must be carefully allocated so DON’T sweat the small stuff!
Recommended Reading: The Organized Mind Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload by Daniel J Levitin PHD Professor of Psych & Behavioral Neuroscience McGill U