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How to Stop Decision Fatigue

Decision fatigue is why you can handle a full day of work and family and still freeze when someone asks what’s for dinner. By the middle of the afternoon, you’ve already made hundreds of small decisions: which email to answer first, whether to do the laundry, what to do about that thing on your list. Each one costs a little attention, and eventually there’s nothing left to make the next choice with.

Why it hits so hard

Every choice costs a little attention, even the tiny ones. When you juggle work, family, and a goal of your own, those choices pile up fast. The most expensive one is usually the quiet question underneath everything else: what should I do next?

You answer it by scanning a long list and weighing every item against everything else. That’s exhausting, and it often ends in doing nothing, or doing whatever feels easiest.

Seven ways to reduce decision fatigue

  1. Decide once, not daily. Pick your default breakfast, your grocery day, your Monday routine. Anything that becomes a default stops costing you a decision.
  2. Make the big decisions early. If you have a choice that matters, make it when your head is clear. Don’t leave it for 4 p.m.
  3. Shrink your options. Three choices are easier than thirty. Whenever you can, narrow the field before you start choosing.
  4. Batch similar decisions. Plan the week’s meals in one sitting. Answer all your messages at once. One round of deciding beats ten scattered ones.
  5. Know your energy before you choose. A task that’s easy at 9 a.m. can feel impossible at 3 p.m. Matching the task to your energy takes the argument out of it.
  6. Keep one master list. When tasks live in five apps, a notebook, and your head, you spend energy just figuring out where to look. One place means one less decision.
  7. Stop re-deciding what’s already decided. Once you’ve chosen your priorities, trust them. Reopening the question every hour is where the fatigue sneaks back in.

The decision that costs the most: choosing your next task

Most of these tips come back to the same moment: you have time, you have a list, and you have to pick.

In On Target Planner, you start by listing the steps toward your goal, which we call your Shot List. Each step is tagged with how long it takes, how much energy it needs, and whether it feels draining or exciting.

Later, when you’re ready to do something, you tell the Spotter how much time you have and how much energy you’ve got. The Spotter gives you one task from your own list that fits. It looks at both your goal steps and your everyday tasks, so your goal fits into the rest of your life. So instead of scanning thirty items and weighing them all, you answer two questions and get one task.

Keep reading

Try it on a low-energy day

The easiest way to see what the Spotter does is on a day when your plan falls apart. Tell it you have twenty minutes and not much energy, and see what comes back. An unplanned day can still end with a step finished.

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