How to avoid decision fatigue [#53]

“Make one decision that eliminates one thousand decisions.” - Tim Ferriss 

Since launching Generalyst, I’ve received an overwhelming amount of applications. For which I’m super thankful. But it also implies that now, I have to look at a lot of CVs, do a lot of interviews and ultimately make a decision who I want in my cohort. 

All of these are decisions, and more often than not, they’re not easy. 

You might know this feeling from shopping for Christmas presents (reminder – it’s Christmas soon and you should get a head start on buying them now): you go to the inner city or the mall, and spend most of the day shopping.

At night, you come home, absolutely exhausted. 

Because you spent all day making decisions. 

This psychological phenomenon is called decision fatigue. Imagine your decision energy like a battery: you start every day fully charged, and deplete that battery slightly with every decision.

Complex decisions cost more battery, but every decision takes out some of it. 

When the battery is running low, choices become harder – and all the sudden, you’re sitting on the couch at night not being able to choose a movie to watch while also not being able to decide what to eat. 

Decisions that would be very easy in the morning. 

How do we protect our decision energy? Three ways: 

1. Eliminating simple decisions
2. Making decisions in advance
3. Simplifying complex decisions 

[1] Eliminating simple decisions

Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg and Barack Obama are all famous for wearing the same outfit every day. Sounds eccentric at first, but with a good reason: they don’t have to decide what to wear anymore. They’ve made one decision that eliminates one thousand decisions. 

I’m also quite positive they always order the same coffee, eat the same breakfast and use the same morning routine daily. 

By doing this, they eliminate simple, mundane decisions that don’t move the needle – Obama was able to run the US effectively regardless of the color of suit he wore. 

[2] Making decisions in advance 

If you can’t eliminate a decision, you can batch it and make it in advance. This is what plans do: 

• Instead of deciding at the gym what to do, you refer to a training plan
• Instead of deciding what to eat for lunch, you refer to your weekly meal plan
• Instead of deciding what task to work on, you refer to your daily to-do list 

You can also delegate this decision making: why write your own training plan if a personal trainer could also write it for you? This way, you put your training completely on autopilot – you just need to show up. 

Quick one – I’m running a Cyber Monday promotion on Personal Productivity OS. If you’ve been on the fence about buying it, now would be a good time. :) Use the code CYBERMONDAY45 at checkout (until 25.11., 23:59 CET).

[3] Simplifying complex decisions

Some decisions still need to be made. At Generalyst, I ultimately need to decide whether I want to take someone into the program or not. If I don’t make that decision, nobody will. 

But I can save some decision energy by simplifying it. 

For example, I can create criteria and scoring sheets that allow me to use a framework instead of making every decision from scratch. Not only do I save decision energy with these, but they also reduce bias and make the process replicable. 

In product management, one of the biggest decisions that you constantly have to make is which development item to prioritize next. These decisions are infinitely complex and exhausting. 

So product managers will lean or frameworks like ICE Scoring. Which doesn’t eliminate the decision, but sure makes it easier.

Another way to simplify complex decisions is to employ mental models.

A well-known one is Occam’s Razor: when trying to decide what hypothesis explains a problem the best, pick the one that requires the fewest assumptions. Simply put: “the simplest explanation is usually the best one.” 

The common thread here is building systems in your life. Systems to eliminate decisions, systems to make decisions in advance, and systems to make complex decisions more simple. 

Question for you: 

Where in your life can you: 

• Eliminate simple decisions?
• Make them in advance?
• Simplify complex decisions? 

Reflect, then reply to this email if you’d like. Would be curious to hear your take. 

Wishing you a successful & productive week. I’m rooting for you. 

LFG 🔥
Dominik

PS: Super interesting report by Generalist World from a survey of 589 generalists and their struggles in the job market. Read it here. 

PPS: Personal Productivity OS contains many more of these systems. Don’t miss out on the Cyber Monday sale and enroll today using the code CYBERMONDAY45 (only until tonight, 25.11., 23:59 CET).