Claudia von Boeselager explains decision fatigue, the mental exhaustion from making roughly 35,000 choices daily. A 2010 study of parole judges found decision quality drops as the day goes on. She recommends automating recurring choices like meals and wardrobe, and using a decision budget to preserve mental energy for what matters.
Chapters
Hello, dearest life optimization friends. Did you know that decision fatigue is real? I'm your host Claudia von Boeselager, and in today's episode of the Longevity and Lifestyle Podcast, I'm digging into an important topic of decision fatigue. Research suggests that the average person makes an eye-popping 35,000 choices per day. Assuming that most people spend about 7 hours asleep at night and Blissfully Choice Free, that makes roughly 2,000 decisions per hour or one decision every 2 seconds. No wonder our brain becomes exhausted and decision fatigue sets in. We all know mid-afternoon, our best of intentions go out the window and we might have something sweet or eat something that we don't want to or make other not so great choices. Let me tell you a story. Well, as a recovering perfectionist and very enthusiastic learner, I've spent most of my life taking on a lot, be it new projects, activities, events. I have a bit of FOMO. I have to work on my JOMO, joy of missing out. My plate is pretty full most of the time. Add to that multiple businesses, kids, family, social life. The amount of decisions that needed to be made in a day were just growing exponentially. And I remember standing in my kitchen one evening after a long and pretty intense day, literally not being able to make a single decision on what to eat. I just stood there blank. Not a single idea, not a drop of ability to decide. The tank was completely empty. Decision fatigue had set in. For someone who typically processes quickly, this was quite a bizarre and tiresome place to be. It wasn't until I was reading Dave Asprey's book Game Changers that I came across the concept of decision fatigue, and I knew it was real. You see, big or small, we are constantly making decisions: what to wear, what to eat, what email to reply to first, what messages to check, should I click on the link that my friend sent, I need to call my aunt, should I go on that trip. It can get very overwhelming very quickly. This is part of the reason why Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs wear the same thing every day. Even Barack Obama is known to wear 1 to 2 suits each day as well. Fast forward to today, well, I've set up some systems and processes in my life to the greatest extent possible to allow me to focus better on what matters so that I can keep my decision-making abilities to the things that move the needle towards my goals. So let's look a little bit more at what's going on with decision fatigue. Well, decision fatigue causes the best of intentions to go out the window because our brain can only process so many decisions in a day. For the majority of us, we do not live and work in environments that are optimized for good decision-making. Notifications, interruptions, our attention and need to make choices are constantly tested. And as our world becomes more and more hectic, all the more important for us to really, really think about this decision fatigue concept and optimize processes from there to ensure that we are making decisions and choices that really serve us and help us be at our best. It's also just worth noting that decision fatigue is a phenomenon that affects us all, no matter your IQ or EQ, or even if you're highly rational. The more decisions we need to make throughout the day, the harder it becomes for the brain to make each decision. And what happens is that the brain then looks for shortcuts to circumvent this decision fatigue, eventually leading to poor decision-making. One interesting study that exemplifies this was done in 2010 in Israel, where researchers studied how judges made decisions whether or not convicted criminals should have their parole approved or not. They studied more than 1,000 parole hearings over 10 months and uncovered a strong correlation between the time of day that the decision needed to be made by the judge and the results. So the yeses were typically first thing in the morning when the judges were fresh, or directly after lunch. So let's look at a few tools that you could use.
This episode is brought to you by Aerofit. How many of us develop bad breathing habits? I know I did. It wasn't until I tried the Aerofit device that I relearned how to breathe better. Even after a few 2 to 3 minute sessions, I could tell the difference when running. Aerofit is a smart respiratory muscle trainer that allows you track, monitor, and improve the strength of the pulmonary muscles.
You start by inputting your metrics and goals in the app, followed by a baseline lung test, and then start your individualized breath training sessions.
This device can benefit everyone from high-performance athletes to breathwork practitioners to those who just want to breathe better. In as little as 5 to 10 minutes a day, you become more efficient at breathing, all while sitting on your couch. So if you're ready to take your lung strength and flexibility to the next level, as well as improving your neuromuscular pathways leading to better breathing biometrics, then Aerofit is for you. And for you, dear audience, you can go to aerofit.com, that's A-I-R-O-F-I-T.com, and use discount code Claudia15 to get 15% off.
Well, one tool used by the founder and CEO of coach.me, Tony Stubblebine, is that he sets what's known as a decision budget for yourself every day. If think of the decision budget, you only get a certain amount of decisions you can make, big or small, each day. So you want to spend them wisely, and you want to ensure that you're not running out of your decision budget earlier in the day so that you can still make good decisions later on. Tony learned that decision-making habits were the most important habits to ensure that he wasn't depleting his decision budget so early and he was making the best decisions for his company. Another way to optimize for decision-making is to automate all that you can. So think once and roll it it out from there. For example, meals, right? You can create a monthly rolling meal plan. So you think once what the recipes could be for the next 4 weeks, and you can create the shopping list as well and pick the days that you actually go to the supermarket, and then it continuously rolls from there. Wardrobe is another one. Look at your monthly calendar, decide on the outfits in one sitting, and that way you can ensure that you're not constantly having to think and rethink about what to actually wear. Exercise is another great one. You can plan your month or even your quarter in advance, you schedule it, you put it in your diary, and you think once, and you've rolled it out from there. It's automated as well. Another option, of course, is to hire a performance coach who will help you to see where you are unknowingly wasting energy and help to structure and automate things so that you can make the best decisions every day. I hope you enjoyed this episode on decision fatigue, and don't forget to share with family and friends who need it. Thanks so much, and see you next time.
Hi everyone, this is Claudia again. Before you take off, would you like to get a short email from me with some short but sweet fun tips, tricks, and updates on all things longevity and lifestyle? This could be cool products that I've discovered, interesting posts or articles I've read, and other fun and helpful things around longevity and lifestyle I've found for you. It's a very short piece of inspiration for you a few times a month, so if you want to receive it, check it out by going to longevity-and-lifestyle.com. .com. That's longevity-and-lifestyle.com.
