Decision Fatigue

Let’s say we just want to stay home, have a snack and watch a movie. Remember when there were basically two kinds of potato chips - plain and barbecued? Today, a single company offers over 350 varieties. Or, GrubHub, Uber Eats, DoorDash and a dozen more delivery companies will bring us whatever we want from any of a thousand restaurants - or from pretty much any supermarket. 

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A movie? Most cable outlets offer 1,500 or more channels. Tens of thousands of movies are streaming on-demand at Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, HBO, Showtime, the new Disney channel, and all those on-demand cable channels. Choice is good. Too much choice can be exhausting.   

Studies show that the quality of our decision-making declines over the day, as we become more and more exhausted with the choices we’re presented with. It’s not just snacks and movies - it’s browsers and emails, and texts and messages and posts and tasks and projects. As the day progresses, we’re more and more apt to go on autopilot and let our reactions make our decisions for us.     

When this overload hits, the best way to clear the baffles is to stop, and simply open yourself to what is happening right now, in this moment. Leave your choices behind and put a little bit of mental energy back into the tank.