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You are here: Home / Leadership Skills / Decision fatigue: Do you have it? Does your team?

Decision fatigue: Do you have it? Does your team?

February 25, 2019 By Jennifer Azara

Think fast: How many decisions would you say you make in a day?

Count ‘em all, from what kind of dressing to have on your salad at lunch to how to handle that difficult personality type.

Problem is, if you make too many salad-dressing level choices in a day, you might not make the best call when it comes to the problem employee.

Enter decision fatigue. It’s hitting folks everywhere – hard – from their personal to professional lives. And it can be particularly troublesome for women leaders who may agonize over their decisions more than others.

4 ways to fight the fatigue

Considering how important many of the choices you and your team make, you can’t afford to fall to it, so consider these strategies from Jory MacKay in her post “Decision Fatigue: What it is and how it’s killing your focus, motivation, and willpower”:

  1. Be cognizant of your timing. Have a large or impactful call to make? Try to do it early in the day, before your brain has been over-taxed with too many other decisions.
  2. Don’t overload agendas. Decision fatigue can even creep into a 30 minute meeting. First, don’t put too many things to tackle on a single meeting agenda. And just like when organizing your day, plan to address the most important issue first, rather than building to it.
  3. Simplify the choices be made. Everyone knows Mark Zuckerberg wears the same thing every day – one inconsequential decision he doesn’t have to make. No need to box up your wardrobe for Goodwill, but see where choices can be simplified or even eliminated in your workday.
  4. Focus on momentum. It’s not a question of having the willpower to make decisions, no matter what the size. It’s about having the momentum to regain control over your day – something decision fatigue robs us of. The good news? All you have to do is start the task. According to psychologists, once we start a task, our brain becomes obsessed with completing it.

 

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Filed Under: Leadership Skills, Featured Home Tagged With: choices, decision fatigue, decisions

About Jennifer Azara

“I just love bossy women. I could be around them all day. To me, bossy is not a pejorative term at all. It means somebody’s passionate and engaged and ambitious and doesn’t mind leading.” -- Amy Poehler, Actress
 
I’m thrilled to have recently joined Progressive Women’s Leadership in the role of Managing Editor. I’ve worked as a writer and editor for more than 18 years, covering a variety of “beats” from CFOs to warehouse workers. But this is the one I’m most excited about. The key to editorial success is to be in constant contact with your audience – find out what info they need, what keeps them up at night. Then work tirelessly to give them that with every story. I want our site to be the first resource you go to when you have a challenge at work. This bossy woman is ready to get down to business!

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