One of the subtlest and sneakiest ways to overload your brain is to bombard it with almost infinite choices. Whether it's a full inbox, a constantly refreshing Slack feed, or a stack of different projects, we can allow ourselves to get pulled this way and that all day long. As a result, we don't complete the tasks that matter and yet somehow end up feeling mentally drained. Here are some tools and techniques that will help you keep your work environment consistent, limit your options in a productive way, and automate certain choices to keep your mind fresher.  

 

Before we get into how to combat decision fatigue, let’s make sure we’re on the same page about what it is.

 

“Your brain is like a muscle,” Dr. Bruce Y. Lee explained in a post for Psychology Today. “While using it regularly should make it stronger, there are limits as to how many different decisions you should be making at a given time. When you use your muscles too much, they fatigue. Similarly, as you have to make more and more decisions within a very short period of time, at some point, the quality of your decision-making deteriorates. You make worse and worse choices, and decision-making becomes more and more difficult. This in essence is decision fatigue.”

 

Now that we’ve nailed what decision fatigue is, it’s time to decide (pun intended) what to do about it.

 

Dare to Delegate

 

When you’re in the thick of a hectic work environment, it can appear easier and quicker just to make every little choice yourself. And when you’re mentally worn out, any control issues you have can start to surface by you white-knuckling every decision. Plus, if you’re a leader, then you might assume that everyone is looking to you to be in charge all the time.

 

The trouble is that if you get trapped in this way of thinking, you’re setting yourself up for decision fatigue to the point that it almost becomes inevitable. You need to remember that you have a talented team comprised of competent individuals who are more than capable of making sensible choices.

 

“Your team is there with you, ready and able to help share the load,” veteran tech executive and CEO coach Glenn Gow wrote in a blog post. “By delegating tasks that don’t need your direct attention, you allow yourself more space for high-level decisions. This doesn’t mean dumping unwanted work onto others, but assigning tasks and responsibilities based on skills and interests – fostering growth while lessening your own burden. It’s like being part of a relay race where everyone gets their turn to run.”

 

So how can you decide what to delegate to alleviate decision fatigue? It can be based on the importance of the task. If it’s a relatively routine thing, then you can hand it off to someone else. Subject matter expertise is another consideration. If it’s a financial matter, your CFO is probably going to have a better handle on the matter than you, or if it’s a personnel concern, then you could leave it up to the HR director.

 

Minimize Minor Choices

 

One of the main reasons that decision fatigue starts to build up during the day is that we’re constantly bombarded with too many small “this or that” options. These don’t seem like a big deal at the time but end up becoming like a death from a thousand razor cuts. That might be a bit dramatic, as it’s doubtful that anyone actually perishes from decision fatigue, but you get the point: the more mental resources you waste on minutiae, the less capacity you will have to focus on what really matters.

 

As such, it’s important to clear out as much cognitive clutter as you can from your day. This can start when you get up. If you make the same coffee or tea first thing and eat a consistent breakfast, then there are two choices that you don’t need to make. Steve Jobs famously wore the same outfit every day, so he never had to consider what to wear. You don’t have to go that far, but you could lay out your clothes the night before to remove the sartorial guesswork when you awaken.

 

Prioritize Major Decisions

 

When we’re succumbing to decision fatigue, every little choice can seem like a big deal. When you’re cognitively overwhelmed, an evening trip to the grocery store could end up with you staring at umpteen different kinds of toothpaste for ages, as if fluoride or non-fluoride and peppermint versus spearmint were valid debates with serious consequences.

 

As decision fatigue skews your perspective by making minor considerations seem major, it leaves you with too little bandwidth to deliberate what’s truly significant and make reasonable and accurate choices. What good will it do if you pick the absolute best tube of toothpaste but choose the wrong hire for that open sales job? To prevent this, it’s important to reorder your daily decision-making so that you’re prioritizing what really matters.

 

“Make the toughest decisions early,” Dharma Growth founder Svetlana Dimovski advised in an article for the Forbes Coaches Council. “If you know you have tough decisions on your plate for the day, make those when you feel most rested. Rank the choices you need to make in a day from most to least important and handle the least impactful ones at the end of the day.”

 

 

 

 

 

Game Your Office and Routines

 

Another way to keep decision fatigue at bay is to maintain consistency in your surroundings. The more randomness there is in your environment, the more little choices you’ll have to make about getting it just right. So you need to find tools that can help you create a sense of order and eliminate the need to choose.

 

This can apply to something as simple as an adjustable desk. It’s no secret that standing and moving more throughout the day can improve cognitive output, reduce the risk of disease, and increase concentration. But if you have to think about whether to sit or stand and when to make the switch, you’re just adding more mental load that can eventually tip you over the edge.

 

Tempo from Ergodriven eliminates this pesky decision point. It replaces the regular handset on your desk to give you a kind of co-pilot for your desk. You can configure when you want to sit and stand in advance so that when you first show up to work in the morning, there’s already a preset pattern in place. Or you can let the cruise control function automatically adjust your desk height based on how long you’ve been in one position. Either way, you won’t need to think about maintaining a healthy sit/stand rhythm and can focus on doing your best work.

 

You can further minimize the impact of decision fatigue by designing, optimizing, and sticking to consistent daily rituals. This can include bookending each day with a morning routine that sets you up for success and establishing relaxing evening routines like taking a warm bath, drinking a certain tea, and spending a few minutes on meditation or prayer.

 

Then during the day, having a couple of go-to lunch options (or packing your own), getting the same afternoon caffeine fix at your local coffee shop, and meeting with your team at a regular time can all eliminate optional handwringing. The fewer decisions you have to make, the better you’ll feel at the end of the day, and the more capable you’ll be of making the most important choices.