Decision Fatigue

Decisions are tiring aren't they.

Every day you make dozens of decisions - right from the moment you wake up. Some are trivial:
Blue shirt or pink?
Should I let the kids sleep in?
What will I take for lunch? (Or - stuff it - should I eat out today?)

But many leadership decisions are far more significant. And I know many of you have been making tough decisions in the past week.

How do I tell them their role is being disestablished?

How long can we keep going without hiring a replacement team member?

Should we persist with that service even though it's losing us money?

Decision fatigue is a thing.

Studies have shown that judges are more likely to go easy on somebody earlier in the day when their minds are fresher.

It's why famous leaders like Barack Obama and Mark Zuckerberg wear the same outfit every day. It's one less decision to make.

But what can you do when you're overwhelmed by decisions? Especially when those decisions impact lots of other people?

A good decision made is better than a perfect decision delayed.

My family has often labeled me as indecisive. And for good reason.

I didn't know what I was going to study at university until the week before enrolment. It was only thanks to a chance conversation as a kitchen hand that I ended up choosing law. (The chef had studied English and resented that he now worked in a kitchen.)

But in recent years I've been working on my ability to just hurry up and bloody well make the decision already Paul!

Ship it already.

Marketing expert Seth Godin calls this "shipping". It's the idea that we need to get partially formed things out into the world quickly. Only through testing them in the real world do we discover their utility.

These emails are one such example. My thinking is not perfectly formed. The prose is good enough, but not great. But sending them every week is easier than sending them every fortnight... which is easier than sending them once a month. And I learn from the regular act of writing. (And I know you get value from my regularity too.)

Of course, this idea of "shipping" gets more complex when your decisions impact lots of people.

But you can still test your decisions earlier. By involving other people earlier in the decision process, you get to test your thinking in a safer environment - and gradually improve the quality of your thinking, decisions and creations.

What decisions are you avoiding or delaying?

I bring this same lightness with decisions into my discovery calls with clients. My favourite response to "Would you like to work together?" is "Yes!" My second-favourite response is not "Maybe...", it's "No". Great - that's the decision made.

If you're feeling tired in your work, it might be time to audit your own decisions. (This is what strategy work asks us to do, although we can often lose sight of this.)

A few years ago I did this with a team I managed. We listed all the decisions we needed to make. (It was a long list.) We identified those where we could make a one-time decision on the spot. And then made those decisions. It was liberating!

So let me ask you... What would it mean to you if you got ahead of your decision fatigue?