Welcome back to Wayfinder, your fortnightly compass for navigating life’s toughest decisions.
Today, we’ll explore a phenomenon that stealthily compromises our ability to make sound judgements: decision fatigue.
In Homer's epic, The Odyssey, Odysseus faces a multitude of decisions on his journey back to Ithaca. Perhaps none so poignant as when he must navigate past the Sirens, whose enchanting songs lure sailors to their doom.
Odysseus, aware of his imminent decision fatigue and the critical nature of the choices ahead, instructs his men to tie him to the mast and fill their own ears with beeswax. He effectively removes the need to make a decision in the face of temptation, ensuring his and his crew's survival.
The Weight of Choices​
Your days are packed with decisions: what to wear, which route to take to work, how to respond to an email, what to have for lunch, and so on. It seems trivial, right? But here’s the kicker: each decision, no matter how minor, depletes a portion of your mental energy, leading to a state we call decision fatigue.
The Jam Experiment​
Sheena Iyengar and Mark Lepper from Columbia and Stanford University conducted a study that’s now famously known as the Jam Experiment.
They set up a booth of Wilkin & Sons jams at a California gourmet market. Every few hours, they switched between offering a selection of 24 jams and a group of just six jams. Counter-intuitively, the larger selection attracted more onlookers, but fewer purchases. This paradox highlights a crucial aspect of decision fatigue: too many options can overwhelm us, making it harder to make a decision.
Judicial Robes and Parole Decisions​
A startling study involving over 1,100 parole board decisions revealed a bizarre pattern: prisoners were more likely to be granted parole after the board had taken a food break. The refreshed judges, with replenished mental energy, showed more leniency. As the day wore on, and decision fatigue set in, the rate of granting parole dropped significantly. This illustrates how decision fatigue can lead to default choices, avoiding the mental strain of weighing options.
Fighting Decision Fatigue​
So, how do we combat decision fatigue? Here are a few strategies:
- Limit Choices: Streamline your day by reducing the number of decisions you need to make. President Obama famously wore only blue or grey suits to eliminate one decision from his day.
- Prioritise Decisions: Tackle your most important decisions first thing in the morning when your mental energy is at its peak.
- Create Routines: Establishing routines automates mundane decisions, preserving your mental bandwidth for more critical thinking.
- Take Breaks: Just as judges benefited from breaks, stepping away to recharge can help mitigate the effects of decision fatigue.
Reflection:
- Think about a day when you felt overwhelmed by decisions. Could decision fatigue have played a role in how you felt?
- How can you restructure your day to minimize unnecessary decisions?
- Which routines can you establish to automate some of your daily choices?
This quote by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, author of The Little Prince, speaks to the essence of combating decision fatigue. It’s not about adding more layers of complexity to our decision-making process but about stripping it down to its essentials.
Simplifying our lives and decisions can lead to a form of perfection in clarity and purpose, a crucial countermeasure against the overwhelm of decision fatigue.
Stay decisive.