- On average, you make roughly 35,000 decisions per day.
Like deciding what T-shirt to wear,
what breakfast to eat, and what YouTube video to watch.
Thanks, by the way.
In many ways, this constant deluge of decisions
is a byproduct of our ever-advancing modern society.
Look around and you'll see more choices than ever before.
It wasn't long ago that if you wanted a coffee,
your only option was coffee.
Now, walk into almost any cafe and you'll be asked,
do you want almond milk, oatmeal, goat milk?
Venti, grande, Ariana Grande?
Grocery stores are lined with choices.
In any given supermarket,
you might have six different types of peanut butter,
nine varieties of apples, and 12 brands of yogurt.
Ridesharing apps help you find the ride you want,
whether it's budget cars or helicopters.
And fast food restaurants encourage you to have it your way.
You can instantly compare items on Amazon,
rank the top 20 taco shops on Google,
and swipe through hundreds of eligible dates,
right from the toilet.
While on the surface,
this kind of choice feels like a good thing,
there's a heavy burden
to our constant need to make decisions.
And the cumulative cost
of making tens of thousands of them every single day
might be completely changing your life in a very bad way.
So I know that this might all sound a little bit dramatic.
After all, most of the decisions
that we make on a daily basis aren't exactly life or death.
We're trying to figure out what shoes to wear
or whether or not that CAPTCHA image
is a seal or a traffic sign.
But when we constantly sweat the small stuff,
it has implications on our happiness,
the quality of our relationships.
And if we aren't careful,
it can even impact the outcome of really important decisions
like choosing where to invest our money
or whether or not to take that job in a new city.
In psychology, they call it decision fatigue.
Basically, when you make a lot of decisions during your day,
the quality of those decisions decreases over time.
In the morning,
you might be able to fly through decisions
one after another.
But later that night
when you get closer to 35,000 decisions,
you begin to make mistakes that you might later regret.
Psychologist Dr. Jean Twenge knows a thing or two
about this topic.
Her research into decision fatigue started
while she was planning her wedding with her husband.
Specifically, they were picking out the items
for their wedding registry.
Did they want ceramic or porcelain plates?
Rustic or elegant?
The two-slice toaster or the four?
What brand, what color, what size?
Inspired and absolutely exhausted by this process,
she decided to conduct an experiment.
Dr. Twenge and her colleagues purchased a bunch of items
from a local department store.
Then they asked one group of students
to make a series of shopping-related decisions.
Would they prefer a computer mouse or a controller?
Did they want a red T-shirt or a black one?
How about a candle or a coffee mug?
And then a second control group
was asked to contemplate the same products,
but this time, without having to make any choices.
Afterward, both groups took a classic self-control test:
holding their hand under ice water
for as long as they could.
And the result?
The decision-makers scored significantly lower
when it came to self-control.
This finding,
along with many other follow-up studies to back it,
have come to the conclusion
that self-control is kind of like a battery.
Every decision that we make, even the little ones,
drains the battery's charge a little bit.
Which means that we have less energy available
to make other decisions later on.
And those decisions that we make
might not always be good ones.
Studies have found that nurses
make more expensive and ineffective decisions
the longer they go without a break.
And judges have been shown
to be less likely to grant parole later in the day,
even with similar cases.
Corporations know all about decision fatigue,
and they use it to encourage us to make impulsive decisions.
That's why when you go to the supermarket,
you see treats like candy bars near the checkout.
They know that you've already made a bunch of decisions
while you were doing your grocery shopping,
and you won't have the self-control
to withstand that shiny wrapper.
And when IKEA forces you to walk through the showroom
for three hours until you get to the warehouse section,
and by that point, you can't tell the difference
between the (indistinct) or the (indistinct),
so you just throw both of them in your cart
and hope for the best.
And when we're really worn out
from making too many decisions,
sometimes we refuse to make any at all.
We neglect, ignore, or postpone important decisions
because it all feels too difficult.
We don't know what to say back to that person
in a text message, so we ghost them for a month.
We don't know what task to tackle next on our to-do list,
so we do none of them.
We stand still in the IKEA warehouse,
drooling from our mouth, looking at all of the options,
which only makes us want those meatballs even more.
And if that all sounds a lot like procrastination,
that's because it is.
Decision avoidance can keep us stuck
in a state of analysis-paralysis,
and stop us from taking action on the important things.
The good news is that there are some simple strategies
you can use to reduce decision fatigue
and make better choices where it counts.
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It's actually a pretty good idea.
So let's talk about some simple strategies
that you can use to reduce decision fatigue
and make better choices every day.
The first and most straightforward way
is to simply reduce the amount of decisions that you make.
Okay. Let's be honest.
There is so much crap that we take on every day
that we simply don't need to.
So take stock of your commitments,
and determine what's actually essential
and what you can let go of.
Cut down on your to-do list from 20 items to 10.
Take a rain check on your next social engagement.
Or if you're really feeling the pressure
from the amount of decisions that you need to make,
employ what I call the universal no.
So whenever I'm really busy,
if I'm working towards a project deadline,
let's say I'm making a chorus for my company, Slow Growth,
I will say no to all interviews,
all networking calls, and all side projects.
It doesn't matter if The Rock shows up at my door
and he's like, hey Matt,
I've got a role for you in my next movie.
I will tell him,
I will look The Rock right in his eyes and say no.
That's a lie.
I would definitely say yeah.
I mean, what are you gonna do in that situation?
You're not gonna say no to The Rock.
So obviously there's exceptions.
There's always exceptions.
But for 99.9% of all decisions that you need to make,
I would typically say no.
In the end,
it makes the act of turning people down so much easier.
Because you can say, "Sorry, right now,
I'm turning down all commitments,"
unless you're The Rock,
as I work towards the launch of my next project.
This really tends to take the sting out of the word no.
And people don't get as butt-hurt when you turn them down.
Next, you can automate as many decisions as possible.
There's a reason
that some of the world's most successful people
wear the same thing every day.
From Steve Jobs to Barack Obama to (clears throat),
these brilliant people know
that automating daily decisions like what to wear each day
can free up some of that precious cognitive energy
for the things that actually matter.
This is where putting simple routines in place
can really be helpful,
whether it's having a meal plan on rotation
or working out at the same time every day.
Not only will this help to conserve that brain power,
but it can also help you make healthier decisions everyday
without trying, thanks to habits.
And finally, make your most important decisions
first thing during the day
when your brain hasn't had the chance to get fatigued
by all the other minor decisions yet.
Whether you start your work at 7:00 AM or 3:00 PM,
if you spend your first hour of your day
browsing through Instagram or combing through your emails,
you're wasting your best energy on repetitive tasks
that you can handle later on
when you're feeling that afternoon slump.
Instead, choose the two to three most important things
that you need to get done today,
the things that require the most amount of mental energy,
and do those things first.
That's why I typically leave my mornings open to write,
or to plan my big picture ideas for my business.
Because that's when I know
the most important decisions are being made.
The last bit of advice that I wanna give you
is that you should cut yourself some slack.
It's okay that you've taken on too much in a world
that's designed to wear down your ability
to make good decisions.
Rather than punishing yourself
or attempting to bury your urges,
listen with curiosity
to what thoughts and feelings are behind those impulses.
By paying attention to the triggers
that lead to not so great decisions,
you can learn to identify the things that drain your energy
and compromise your judgment.
Like when for a minute,
I said that I would turn down The Rock's movie role.
Because honestly, The Rock, Dwayne, Mr. Johnson,
if you're watching this video
and you want me to make a cameo in your next movie,
I mean, I know, obviously,
it's probably hard to get a self-development YouTuber
to be in a big Netflix movie.
But I could probably move some things around.
It's really not a big deal.
You've got my number 'cause I keep calling you,
and you just have blocked me.
Thanks for watching, Dwayne and everybody else.
I'll see you next time.