We make hundreds of decisions every day, most of which are irrelevant, but others are important and can even change the course of our lives. The whole day, from the time we get up to the time we go to bed, involves constant decision making. In fact, psychologists at Cornell University have estimated that we make an average of 35,000 decisions every day.
If we don’t know how to handle such decisions properly, we can end up suffering from decision fatigue . Since our “cognitive capacity” is limited, the more decisions we make, the more we will deplete our resources. In fact, even if it may not seem like it, behind every decision there is a complex thought process. We have to weigh the possibilities available to us, evaluate the pros and cons, analyze the possible consequences, estimate the resources we will need and only then can we make the decision.
Therefore, making many decisions can end up overloading our cognitive and emotional resources. Once we hit our “breaking point,” the decisions we make thereafter won’t be optimal. We can become more impulsive or otherwise lazy and start putting off decisions.
To avoid decision fatigue, we must learn to simplify decisions. Thus we can save cognitive energy to allocate it to the most relevant decisions that can really make a difference in our lives.
How to simplify the decisions you make every day?
- A minute for “insignificant decisions”
To simplify decisions, the first step is to identify those that are less important or that don’t have a correct or incorrect answer, because one possibility is as good as the other. Some examples of these decisions are: What color am I wearing today? Do I watch a comedy or a drama? Do I eat rice or pasta?
You can also keep a small diary to help you distinguish significant decisions from irrelevant ones. You may find that you spend a disproportionate amount of time making meaningless decisions where one answer is as good as another. In these cases, the key is to simply choose within a minute. You can flip a coin or let your subconscious decide. You will see how you begin to free up cognitive resources.
- Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can decide today
Continually postponing decisions is not a good idea. That pending decision remains active in your mind, like a flashing alarm that prevents you from resting and whose call can assault you at any moment generating anxiety. In fact, pending decisions tend to be more stressful and carry a greater burden than choosing a possibility and putting it into practice.
Seneca stated that “fortune has the habit of behaving as it pleases”, so postponing decisions, thinking that the chances of success will increase, is a mistake. In fact, it often only serves to pile up obstacles along the way.
With some exceptions, postponing decisions will not help us gather more decisive information, so it is more convenient to decide as soon as possible to move on and avoid problems from accumulating, generating a level of stress and unnecessary overwhelm that will prevent you from thinking clearly .
- Apply what has already worked
Automations often have a bad reputation. However, they exist for a reason: to help you be more effective and to free up cognitive resources. So, the more unimportant decisions you automate, the lighter you’ll feel. When it comes to decisions that you have to make on a regular basis, if the conditions of the game haven’t changed much, you can apply routines that have worked in the past.
You don’t need to continually question proven options unless you want to make a deliberate change. This is exactly what experience is for: helping you decide without stressing yourself too much. The crystallized intelligence you develop over the years allows you to decide better and faster based on what has already worked.
Resorting to the known is not a bad thing, it allows you to save precious psychological energy that you can use to make more important decisions that can really make a difference. So don’t feel guilty about “automating” certain everyday decisions. It will be beneficial in the long run.
At first glance, these three rules for simplifying decisions may seem irrelevant, but if we consider that we face an average of 226 food-related decisions every day, we can understand that the whole cognitive economy is small. We have to think of mental effort as a cost/benefit ratio. If we get bogged down in irrelevant decisions, we will divert resources from more important decisions. Following these rules will take a load off our shoulders making everything run better.
