#decisionmaking

Death By A Thousand Indecisions

“Then indecision brings its own delays, And days are lost lamenting over lost days. Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute; What you can do, or dream you can do, begin it; Boldness has genius, power and magic in it." Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust Death by a thousand indecisions. As Goethe asked, are you “in earnest”? When it comes to decisionmaking, sometimes it's quick: Ready-Fire-Aim. With other decisions, we take our sweet time. How much is indecision costing you? Like death from a thousand cuts, indecisions can slowly deplete our energy, leaving little behind for ourselves or others. Decisions are Draining That's because decisions are draining. Neuropsychologists like Dr. Moira Somers tell us that decisionmaking depletes our mental energy. According to Dr. Somers, every day we wake up with a finite amount of mental energy. As the day goes by, the more decisions we make, the less energy we have. And the bigger they are, the more energy they use. Think about life's transitions. One reason transition times, good or sad, are so stressful and exhausting – a move, a death, retirement, a child, a divorce – is the many seemingly small, plus a few momentous, decisions. Further, lack of sleep, hunger, grief or even excitement can start the whole day off depleted. Then, every indecision we "make" is a decision. In fact, a pattern of indecisions can take physical form, and stress us out every time we see it. What does not-deciding look like? A pile of unfiled papers. Empty boxes stacked in the garage. The “miscellaneous drawer” in the kitchen. The “junk room." Scattered financial accounts in too many places. Unfinished projects. With a finite amount of mental energy at hand, who can blame any of us for having some kind of to-be-decided pile/stack/assortment hanging over us all the time? Dealing with Indecision What to do about it? Make big decisions in the morning, before depletion sets in. Automate it: Use a system to take care of small decisions automaticallyEliminate it: Ask often, "How important is it?"Date-Activate it: Calendar the decision to deal with and be doneDelegate it: Ask for help Automate It An automation example I love and have yet to implement is the decision of what to wear. Michael Kitces, a noted financial expert, famously has a closet full of the same blue shirts, pants, and shoes. One less decision each day for a busy guy. Another example is cooking. Thanks to Cassy Joy Garcia's book, Cook Once: Eat All Week, our household now pre-preps ingredients on Sunday. Then, each work night is 15-30 minutes to assemble and cook the ingredients with pre-planned healthy recipes. The meals are delicious, but the best part is not having to make the decision of what's for dinner. Hallelujah. Eliminate It In the summer of 2021 I began thinking about a new car. My financial plan called for me to sell my would-be 7 year old car in January 2022 and buy another one. I couldn't decide what…

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A Victim of Retail Decision Fatigue

The mission was simple: to buy a spice rack for the pantry. I figured my best shot was at Bed, Bath, and Beyond; a store I had not entered in over a year, much less at the holidays. (I had a specific size and type in mind, and figured I would need somewhere with lots of choices.) Little did I know that retail decision would be the beginning of the end of my productivity for the day. Upon entering, I scanned quickly, looked past the holiday specials, and found the kitchen department. Lo and behold, there were spice racks. And all kinds of other racks. And an embarrassment of choices. Because I like choices (or thought I did until this particular day), before long, I was nose to nose with shelves and shelves of plastic, rubber, aluminum, and chrome gadgets, doodads, and whatchamacallits for kitchen storage problems I didn’t even know I had. As I searched and searched for the exact product I wanted, my brain had to sort through everything else and cast it aside. More than once, something other than a spice rack caught my eye. At first, I had the wherewithal to ignore them. As the minutes wore on, though, I was forced to make dozens of little retail decisions. First decision – does this item look like what I came for? If yes, is it the right size and type? If no, move to next item. As I grew tired of the sorting process, some irrational part of my brain appeared and said, “But….is it something I COULD use? Hmmmm…it looks like very handy and sleek, too, after all….it could make more room in the cabinet maybe?…would it fit in the cabinet?” “STOP IT,” my Rational brain said. “You are here to get the spice rack. Move on.” Next item – does this look like it? No, not quite. Then that annoying voice again, “Oh, wouldn’t it be cool if my whole kitchen looked like the label on this doodad?” “STOP IT,” Rational brain says. “You would have to buy every doodad like it in here, which is a) exactly what the label is suggesting you do and b) out of the question. Next item!” And so it went….for nearly fifteen minutes until I found exactly what I was looking for. By then, the dueling sides of my brain had gone 144 rounds. I was exhausted. But did that stop me from oh, just taking a look around the rest of the store to see if there was anything I couldn’t live without? Nooooooooo. I got to the bath side and wondered what got into me. To check out, I had to walk through the gauntlet of those holiday specials again. I actually stopped and pondered a couple of them. Would these prices be further reduced on Black Friday/Cyber Monday? Should I buy now? Should I wait? When I left the store only $8.35 poorer, I felt like Rocky – beat up, but victorious. I needed…

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