Is Decision Fatigue Wearing You Out? Three Strategies to Overcome It

Liz Katz

Academic Leaders, I’m worried about you. I’ve been in awe watching you over the past year and a half. You balanced the needs of your students, faculty, staff, and families as you responded to a crisis that few of us had the training or expertise to handle, and you did it with grace, wit, and patience. You’ve been faced with decision after decision in response to circumstances and policies that were far outside your control, and far too often, it felt like even the best possible solution fell short of the ideal. And let’s be honest--it took a lot out of you. 

That’s because making decisions is like lifting weights--you build your strength by practicing regularly over time, but if you try to do too much at once, you run out of power. Last week, we asked Academic Leaders what kind of issues they were working on as school gets started. 96% of our respondents said they were working on problems that are both urgent and important:  high stakes decisions that consume time and energy. If we go back to our weight-lifting comparison, it’s like you’re lifting more weight and doing more reps, and that means you’re tiring out faster than ever. 

If we take away the simile, you’re stuck in what social psychologists call decision fatigue. Human brains expend a lot of energy making decisions, and as they run out of energy, it becomes harder to make decisions well. In other words, there are physiological and cognitive explanations for why it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the number of problems you have to solve. Researchers who study this phenomenon have documented concrete approaches to managing and minimizing decision fatigue. Here are three of your most effective strategies:

• If you can’t reduce decisions, limit your choices. The decisions that Academic Leaders face at the start of the school year are a fact of your work, and often, they can’t be delegated. When that happens, try to pare down the possible solutions. For example, if you’re trying to make decisions about COVID-19 protocols, rather than examine all the possibilities every time an issue arises, you’ll make your choices based on the advice from your two (no more, please) go-to sources, such as the Academy of American Pediatrics and the Centers for Disease Control. When you have fewer options, you deplete less of your mental energy choosing between them.
  
• Front-load your day with the most important decisions.  As humans use up their energy over the course of the day, they get worse at making decisions. Most decisions in schools--even the most urgent ones--don’t have to be made right away. Your calendar can help you manage the process so that you make your choices as efficiently as possible. Build a short “finalize decisions” block into your schedule at the start of the day. In the afternoon, when problems arrive, don’t try to solve them immediately. Instead, gather the evidence you need, keeping a running list of the decisions that need to be made, and leave it front and center on your desk when you pack up in the evening. The next morning, start the day by tackling those thorny issues, and you’ll solve them better and faster than you would have the day before.
  
• Give yourself what you need to do your job well. You need to have sufficient energy for your brain to make the decisions your work requires. What it takes to provide and renew that energy is both obvious, and frustratingly out of reach at times:  sleep, nutritious food, hydration, and physical activity. You’ll be able to get more done well when you meet your brain’s needs. If you’re in a tight spot, there’s a quick fix to help:  glucose can partially or fully reverse the effects of decision fatigue for a short time. Snack time isn’t just for the kids.

When I say I’m worried about you, Academic Leaders, it’s only because I see how much you’ve shouldered in the past year and a half. I want to make sure you’re doing okay, and I want you to have every tool available to make your work as manageable and visionary as possible. If you can separate out the skill of decision-making from the decisions themselves, they become easier to approach--and this is the year when you deserve to have things a little easier. 

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