Decision fatigue slows you down. Replace choices with systems to beat the drag.

Decision fatigue happens when you’ve made so many choices that each subsequent one feels more confusing and less meaningful than the last.

It becomes harder to make the right call the more calls you make. The difficulty behind every decision seems out of proportion to an absurd degree.

According to a 2021 American Psychology Association survey, nearly half of millennials report struggling with basic choices like what clothes to wear or what food to consume. About half of adults, of any age, said the lasting impact of the pandemic has made planning for the future daunting.

But there’s a way to beat it.

It’s natural to feel paralyzed when presented with options

Yet, when you take a step back, you can see that those decisions hold less gravity when viewed in a broader context.

“What’s not at stake right now?” can be a good question to ask yourself, says Dane Jensen, author of The Power of Pressure. Adrenaline can cloud our decision-making faculties and skew our perception, he writes.

But reminding yourself of those few essential things that do indeed matter in life — like family, health, satisfaction, to name a few — can bring down the pressure of a given decision.

Of those few essentials, what will this choice impact? Will it impact any of them?

Systems over choices

Something I’ve turned to over the years is relying on habit and routine to make my decisions for me. When I wake up in the morning, there is no question as to what I’ll do.

I start every day with reading not because it’s a conscious choice, but because it’s a system I’ve practiced, refined, and found to be effective.

Make rules for your life, and then abide by them as if you were a character in a play. Those rules, then, will smooth out your decision-making process and narrow the number of decisions you must make on a regular basis.

Making a decision only to question it later can be exhausting.

“Was that the right direction to take?” is a common enough question after passing a fork in the road. But the mere asking of it can drag on subsequent choices you must make.

But following the rules you give yourself — building parameters that make your life better and simpler — can help ease self-doubt. They can reduce how often you question your actions.

For example, if you discipline yourself to complete meal-prep on Sunday nights so you have a week’s worth of lunches, you won’t have to go through a daily debate of what to eat. Then, there’s less chance of going through the daily regret of wondering whether you ate the cheapest or healthiest option.

Or, if you adhere to your schedule of visiting the gym every single day at the same time, you won’t have to decide whether or when to workout, nor will you harbor guilt for missing your exercise.

My new, bestselling book, Life Between Moments, stemmed from the habit of writing 30 minutes every single day after work. There was no decision-fatigue involved because I had no decision to make.

I simply followed my own rules and habit.

The systems you build can streamline decisions, and thus reduce decision fatigue. Then, when your capacity for choice is brimming near the top, you can spend that energy on the things that matter most.

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