Now, more than ever, our brains need a break.
Just like overdoing it on your exercise routine (when your body is stiff or achy), our brains can be overworked and become vulnerable to decision fatigue. Our minds need both time to be unplugged from technology and freedom from making decisions.
Think about the number of decisions that you make throughout your work day. When there are too many decisions or too much to do, you may find yourself later fixing issues that resulted from a reactive or poorly thought out decision. Such mistakes cost us time, add to frustration, and may impact relationships you are trying to build with sponsors.
Reports indicate that we make about 36,000 decisions each day. WOW! It’s astounding isn’t it?
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Think about how your day starts…
- Your alarm goes off. Do you lounge in bed, press snooze, or get up? That’s a decision.
- Do you have coffee before of after walking the dog?
- What will you wear today?
- Which route will you take to your meeting?
Decision Fatigue is Real
Every time your phone buzzes with a notification, you are making a decision to take a peek, ignore, respond, delegate to someone else, or turn your phone off. Every time you get an email notification ping, you must make the same choices.
These days, the siren call of social media really adds volume to the decision mix. Should I like that post? Comment? Visit the rabbit trail of video links? When we are on social media and in our email, we are making decisions about every six seconds.
No wonder we feel tired at the end of the day. Some reports are indicating that entrepreneurs are suffering from decision fatigue. It’s no surprise considering all the responsibilities and choices that go into managing a project or business.
Roy F. Baumeister, social psychologist and author of Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength, coined the term “decision fatigue” and states that this occurs after a long session of decision-making. Decision fatigue can lead to low self-control, impulsive actions, and reduced willpower. Ultimately decision fatigue impacts results and relationships.
Tips for Entrepreneurs to Avoid Decision Fatigue
Raising dreams, working in collaboration with others, and planning events that matter requires focus and energy as well as a number of decisions to be made.
Here are a few tips to renew your energy, ward off decision fatigue, and make better, well-informed decisions:
- Use organization, planning, and communication tools or platforms to help. Our team uses Asana and Google Calendar as two key platforms.
- Put timelines or deadlines on important tasks or decisions. A good degree of entrepreneurial stress results from leaving things to the last minute, procrastinating, or rushing to get something done.
- Give your brain a break. Unplug. Set a time in the day where you do NOT make decisions (so that means you are not in meetings, on calls, looking at social media, or engaged in emails).
- Create daily routines that reduce the number of decisions you make. This does not mean life has to become regimented, but without a sense of structure and routine it could feel that life is disorganized and chaotic.
Want to chat with Raise a Dream about the systems, processes, and tools that can help with decision making related to sponsorship?
Book a time here.