Decision Fatigue

WHAT ARE THE SIGNS & WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT

Your alarm goes off in the morning, and your decision-making begins. Some of the decisions you might be making within the first hour of getting up include:

• Will you hit snooze on your alarm or get up? (And you might make this decision multiple times.)

• Will you look at anything on your phone before getting up? If so, you may make many decisions about what you see, responding to emails, or clicking on some ads in your social media feed.

• Will you exercise this morning? If so, what exactly will you do? Go for a run? Lift some weights? Do some yoga or something else? How long will you exercise?

• Will you meditate this morning? Or journal? Or do some reading or contemplative prayer?

• What music will you listen to while you shower?

• What coat will you wear? Which shoes? Will you take an umbrella?

• What will you have for breakfast? Will you pack a lunch, and if so, what will you put in it?

• Will you wash your hair today?

• What clothes will you wear? What accessories?

As your day continues, you’ll make thousands more decisions, some small and some big, some that you are conscious of and some that you are not.

Everyone’s life and commitments are different, so the types of decisions each person will make each day will be unique.

However, it’s universal that everyone makes thousands of decisions each day. Research by Dr. Brian Wansink and colleagues found that study participants made almost 220 daily decisions about food and drink alone! (Those findings were published in 2007 in Environment and Behavior.)

All of this endless decision-making can be exhausting and overwhelming in some cases, leading to a phenomenon referred to as decision fatigue.  

WHAT IS DECISION FATIGUE?

The term “decision fatigue” describes how one’s ability to make decisions is increasingly impaired after repeated acts of decision-making. It is a mental and sometimes emotional exhaustion that makes it increasingly hard to make subsequent decisions.

WHAT CAUSES DECISION FATIGUE?

It’s important to note that not all decision-making leads to decision fatigue, and not everyone will experience the phenomenon.

SEVERAL VARIABLES CAN CONTRIBUTE TO DECISION FATIGUE, INCLUDING A PERSON’S STRESS LEVEL IN GENERAL, THE NUMBER OF DECISIONS THAT MUST BE MADE IN A SHORT PERIOD OF TIME, AND THE COMPLEXITY AND IMPORTANCE OF THE DECISIONS BEING MADE.

“High levels of stress and having to make lots of complex decisions with important implications will tend to deplete mental and emotional energy faster, making decision fatigue more likely,” said Dr. Cheryl Hurst, a U.K.-based behavioural scientist. “Another variable that can contribute to decision fatigue is choice overload.”

“Choice overload” is a term researchers use to describe having too many options. It is becoming increasingly common in all aspects of life. For example, U.S. grocery stores used to offer 7,000 to 8,000 items from the 1970s to the 1990s but now carry 40,000 to 50,000 items, including about 275 types of cereal alone!

Economics and psychology researchers have argued that more choices are often desirable and can lead to better outcomes. Generally, people are drawn to larger choice sets; they instinctively feel like having more options will give them more decision freedom and that, ultimately, they’ll be able to find the best item/outcome for their needs.

HAVING TOO MUCH CHOICE, HOWEVER, CAN MAKE DECISION-MAKING DIFFICULT, TIME-CONSUMING, STRESSFUL, AND UNSATISFYING.

Brain scan research has shown that making choices from large sets of options is associated with a greater cognitive load. Your brain must work harder to decide when there are more options to wade through.

In a book chapter in Routledge Handbook of Bounded Rationality (2020) titled “Cognitive and affective consequences of information and choice overload,” Dr. Elena Reutskaja and colleagues explained that having an abundance of choice can be beneficial, but only up to a point, after which the availability of additional options becomes detrimental and choice overload sets in.

Research suggests that selecting from a larger choice set is associated with several negative impacts, including greater perceived decision difficulty, lower motivation to make a decision, decreased confidence in one’s choice, more confusion, and poorer quality of decisions.

“When it comes to optimal decision-making, it appears that a moderate number of choices is best,” said Dr. Hurst. “Ideally, you don’t want too many or too few options.”

WHAT INCREASES THE LIKELIHOOD OF DECISION FATIGUE?

Anyone can experience decision fatigue when faced with the need to make a lot of weighty decisions repeatedly over a short period of time. However, there are certain situations where decision fatigue may be more likely to occur, including:

• during difficult or stressful times, e.g., when planning a funeral or even a wedding;

• when the person making the decision has perfectionist tendencies, making them more prone to overthinking every decision to get everything “right”; and

• when the person making the decision lives with anxiety, depression, or post-traumatic stress disorder, all of which can sometimes make it more difficult to make even simple decisions.

TIPS FOR AVOIDING & ADDRESSING DECISION FATIGUE

Below are some steps you can take to help reduce the likelihood of experiencing decision fatigue and/or address it when it does occur.

Reduce the number of decisions you need to make. You can do this by:

• Streamlining your choices, e.g., reduce the number of TV channels and podcasts you subscribe to; have a minimalist wardrobe with limited items that all coordinate.
  
  “The fewer options you have to choose from, the easier decision-making will be,” explained Dr. Hurst.

• Following set routines and habits, e.g., always have tacos on Tuesday or always do an aerobics class at the gym on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at 7 a.m.
  
  “When you commit to a routine or habit, you only have to make the decision once upfront, thereby relieving yourself from giving mental bandwidth to the subject again and again,” said Dr. Hurst.
  
  “Remember, our decision-making abilities tend to worsen over the course of a day, meaning there’s a finite number of good decisions we can make each day. So, you don’t want to waste any of those good decisions on things like what to wear or eat. Instead, put those types of low-importance, repetitive tasks on autopilot, and reserve your prime mental resources for decisions that really matter, like big work-related choices.”

• Reducing the amount of information you take in, e.g., unsubscribe to non-essential emails, especially ones that are always selling you something.
  
  “If you don’t even see the latest deals being offered by your favourite retailers, you won’t have to spend any time and energy thinking about whether to buy something or not,” said Dr. Hurst. “And you’ll decrease the likelihood of making impulse purchases of things you don’t need.”

• If possible, delegate decision-making to others. Ask yourself, is this something I need to decide, or can I let someone else do it?
  
  “Can your co-worker decide what to include in the meeting minutes? Can your spouse choose the paint colour? Can your friend choose the restaurant for lunch?” asked Dr. Hurst. “Let others make some of the decisions, and then make sure you don’t second-guess or micromanage the decisions they made. Of course, they may choose differently than you would have, and they may sometimes make mistakes, but remember, you make mistakes, too!”

• Make big decisions when you’re rested and not hungry.
  
  “Get enough good-quality sleep, take breaks as needed throughout the day, and fuel your body and brain with nutritious food at regular intervals to support good decision-making and help avoid decision fatigue,” advised Dr. Hurst.
  
  “Related to this, it can also be helpful to make your most important decisions in the morning.”

• Don’t second-guess decisions already made. Perfectionism may be to blame if you tend to do this a lot. “Stop seeking the perfect outcome for every decision and instead let ‘good enough’ be your standard for all but the most important decisions,” advised Dr. Hurst.
  
  “Then, once a decision is made, don’t waste any additional time or energy worrying about whether it was the right decision or not, as that will only increase the odds of experiencing decision fatigue.”

WHEN TO SEEK PROFESSIONAL HELP

Decision fatigue is an acute experience, not a chronic one – meaning it should be a temporary, short-lived phenomenon, not something that a person lives with long term. Most people will occasionally experience decision fatigue, which typically resolves itself within a few hours or days.

If someone struggles with decision-making daily, something else might be happening.

If you’re experiencing symptoms of decision fatigue that don’t get better fairly quickly, perhaps after a bit of deep rest and exercise, you might want to consult your doctor or a therapist. They can help advise about actions to address what you are experiencing and perhaps identify and help with underlying things that are going on.

“It’s important to watch for signs of decision fatigue and take proactive steps to prevent it or bounce back from it quickly, because, when left unaddressed, decision fatigue doesn’t just feel unpleasant, it can lead to poor decisions, burnout, and more.”