Every day, we are faced with a relentless barrage of choices. From the trivial (what to wear, what to eat for lunch) to the significant (how to handle a major work project), each choice we make consumes a finite amount of our mental energy. This phenomenon is known as decision fatigue: the deteriorating quality of our decisions after a long session of making choices. It explains why we are more likely to make impulsive or poor choices at the end of a long day. A powerful life hack to combat this is to consciously simplify your life by reducing the number of trivial decisions you have to make, thereby preserving your best mental energy for the choices that truly matter.
The core concept is that your willpower and capacity for rational thought function like a muscle. With each use, it becomes a little more tired. When your “decision muscle” is fatigued, your brain will start to look for shortcuts. The two most common shortcuts are either to act impulsively and recklessly, or to do nothing at all because you no longer have the energy to weigh the consequences. This is why you might stick to your diet all day and then find yourself unable to resist a late-night snack, or why a leader might make a poor strategic choice at the end of a long day of back-to-back meetings.
The strategy to combat this is to create systems and routines that put your recurring, low-impact decisions on autopilot. By creating a structure for the mundane parts of your life, you free up an incredible amount of cognitive bandwidth.