(Credit: René Ramos; Stora Space/Shutterstock.com)
Should you quit your job? Which graduate school is better for you? Where should you live? What should you name your baby?
Decision fatigue is real. You make decisions all day and every day about what to wear, how to spend your time, where to take your career, which sources of information to allow into your life, and (the most dreaded of them all) what to have for dinner.
Decision coach Nell Wulfhart helps people work through these very questions. In about an hour, she and a client discuss a problem, arrive at a decision, and end with a short list of actions the person will take to enact their choice.
In her 11 years of helping people figure out what to do, Wulfhart has noticed that they overvalue the decision-making process. "There's an endless stream of decision-making matrices, and systems, and trees, and weighting with numbers, and I just don't think it helps the average person," she says.
With that in mind, here are some strategies for reducing the number of decisions you make and how long it takes to make them.
1. Make Decisions Faster
What's the biggest issue with indecision? "The number one thing is [that] people are wasting time," says Wulfhart. "They're losing mental energy and brain space to making decisions. And it's not improving the quality of the decision."
Wulfhart tells people to cut their decision-making time in half. If you think you need a week to make a decision, do it in four days. "Honestly, I would say cut it to 10%, but people are terrified when I say that," she says.
If making up your mind quickly seems rash, keep in mind that many decisions aren't permanent. If you start down one path and find it's not working, it might not be too late to change.
2. Take Action
In the time you spend making a decision, you could be taking action and experimenting with your options. Sometimes, you won't know whether the decision you make is right until you try it. An example is if you're considering starting a side hustle. It might be more valuable to launch the business and try it out for a few months to see whether and how well it works. Giving yourself six months of hands-on experience is much more valuable than taking six months to revise a pros and cons list about it.
3. Explain the Problem Out Loud
You can learn a lot about any conundrum by explaining it to someone who knows nothing about it. Someone unfamiliar with your situation (whether it's a friend, therapist, or a decision coach) will ask questions, and the act of ironing it all out neatly for them can help you focus your thoughts. Wulfhart says sometimes her clients come to a decision very early in their session because the act of explaining the problem clearly helps them see which decision is the right one.
4. Get Permission—From Yourself or Someone Else
Some of Wulfhart's decision coaching comes down to "signing permission slips," as she puts it. She says most people already know more or less what decision they'll make, but they need someone to listen, ask the right questions, and tell them it's OK.
Other times, people want a second opinion. Just like with medical opinions, it helps if the second opinion is the same as the first.
While getting a permission slip or a second opinion from another person might add to your confidence about the decision you make, you might also need to give yourself permission before you feel good about taking action.
6. Eliminate Small Decisions That Don't Matter
You've likely heard the anecdotes of people who simplify their lives by cutting out small decisions. Consider the politician who always wears the same suit or the scientist who always eats the same dinner. One of Wulfhart's examples is a gift-giving occasion for a small child; she always buys the same books from the same bookstore. "I'm not trying to give more space in my brain to decisions that don't matter," she says.
A similar tactic is this: When you face multiple choice answers about a decision that doesn't matter—Should we go to the pizzeria or the sandwich shop?—always pick the first option. Then there is no decision to make. Just be mindful that you don't suck the joy away from other people who delight in the friendly debates that these kinds of choices bring.
6. Align With Your Values
When you're really stuck with a tough choice, step back and consider how the different options align with your values and the kind of life you want for yourself in the future.
For example, if you're considering taking a job that would be fully remote, ask yourself how much you value sleeping in and adhering to your own schedule versus commuting and socializing with colleagues in person. Or, if you're making a business decision, think about which option best aligns with the organization's goals and mission statement. If the life you picture for yourself in one year involves a dog and a garden, don't sign a lease for a studio apartment, even if it's in a great neighborhood.
7. Don't Ask for Everyone's Advice
A good decision can take other people's opinions into consideration, but it doesn't have to. If you have people in your life with outsized opinions about what you should or should not do (parents, for example), you don't have to ask for their advice or even tell them about the decisions you're facing. "It's good to get opinions of people who know you well, absolutely," says Wulfhart, "but you don't have to ask everyone."
For more ways to keep your personal and professional life on track, check out our articles on how to choose what to work on first and how deleting with abandon is good for organization.