Have you ever wondered, why do influential people such as Barack Obama, Mark Zuckerberg and the late Steve Jobs wear the same outfit every single day? That is because they believe in eliminating the need in making a decision first thing in the morning, thus using less brainpower, reserving it for more important matters that will happen during their day.
Decisions, decisions, decisions…
Did you know that an average human makes a decision once every two seconds? From choosing which outfit best suits the activities for the day, to the food that goes on the dinner plate in the evening. Either consciously or subconsciously, we make a whopping 35,000 choices each productive day that goes by!
As mind-blowing as that sounds, sometimes it might push us to the point where we don’t really know what we want and just let our minds go into autopilot when making decisions, big or small. And this leads us into decision fatigue.
So what is this decision fatigue all about? And are we experiencing it? Let's find out more.
Understanding Decision Fatigue
Every situation requires a decision, no matter how important it might be. And when we are tired or stressed out, we tend to make mistakes and often, decisions that might bring unfavourable outcomes. There are a few tell-tale signs that you might be experiencing fatigue in committing to choices. Some of those are procrastination, acting impulsively to avoiding the situation altogether. But do not worry, it happens to the best of us. Read on and find out more about this phenomena.
How To Identify When You’re Experiencing Decision Fatigue
The first step to solving a problem is to identify them. In this article, get behind the vantage point of an executive facing decision fatigue and how she combats them. It is interesting, the number of things we can learn from doing the simplest of tasks, or in this case, avoid doing them.
3 Strategies For Combating Decision Fatigue
Being the busy professional that we are, it is easy to neglect stress and the pressure we put on ourselves and to others. It is the people closest to us who will notice changes in our behaviour. There are times where we might find ourselves buried with tough decisions to make, especially with the situation we are going through currently. Here are three strategies for professionals to tackle decision fatigue head-on and emerge the best we can be.
Bonus!
How I Overcame Decision Paralysis | Mary Steffel | TEDxNortheasternU
With decision fatigue, comes decision paralysis. Imagine a standstill moment where we freeze and the fear of making a choice becomes too overpowering, we’d rather not choose at all. We usually face indecisions that cost us to lose out, and we know very well, it is not a good feeling to be in that situation.
In this week’s bonus video, there are many examples and analogies we can take home and ponder on. I found Mary Steffel’s take on Cinderella and the Teavana experience to be unique and very interesting.
So take time and give this video a watch. It’ll help you make decisions better without having the fear to put a foot forward when things get tough. I wish you all the best in making decisions and grab every opportunity for success life hands to you. Have a great weekend!
About Timeo-Performance
We were founded with a vision to improve the world of work for everyone
We are in the Skills Business!
Through recruitment, training and consulting, Timeo-Performance provides solutions for increased performance of companies, teams, and individuals. As our clients are in the center of global business and often serve the APAC region, our solutions need to be sustainable in a multicultural and remote context.
Our joint venture with Akteos, the European leader in intercultural training, and partnership with digital learning solutions provider CrossKnowledge have therefore been organic and logical additions to our service. Timeo-Performance has been helping companies in APAC increase business performance since 2008 with offices in Singapore, Malaysia, and Hong Kong.
We love what we do, feel the Timeo-Performance experience!
As busy professionals, our schedules are often filled to the brim with meetings and tasks to complete. We can get so caught up with work that we might even forget our all-important lunch and power through dinner as well. Alas, we can only do so much given the 24 hours we have in a day. While time management is vital, being productive is another matter in its entirety.Enter time batching.
