9 ms·

Decision fatigue

184 points by diablo1 7y ago

Kagerjay 7y ago
I usually set a time limit of how long it takes for me to make a decision Once I write something I don't go back to fix it until after its done
dumbfoundded 7y ago
I think this is common for entrepreneurs. I've found focusing on my personal mental health has generally been positive for my company. For example, I nap now whenever I want. Whether I lost sleep b/c of some late night problem or just stress, I vigilantly make sure I get enough sleep. Exercise is huge too. Your mental state builds on your physical state.
jariel 7y ago
In software, UI design and in creative fields, this is a real thing. If you have unlimited options (like in music production), you spend all of your time on a tangent-tangent-tangent caught up in decision after decision.
cperciva 7y ago
Note that the commonly cited example of judges being more likely to grant bail earlier in the morning and immediately after lunch is at least partly due to a confounder: The cases where the accused has a lawyer go first.
- sanj 7y ago
  Also, easier cases often go first.
  - sixothree 7y ago
    Surprised there was no control for that sort of thing.
Eduard 7y ago
Meta: please don't capitalize generic terms. Wikipedia calls this article correctly "Decision fatigue", not "Decision Fatigue". I noticed that lately at HN, Wikipedia articles' titles get capitalized. It's annoying and without any purpose, even misleading.
- capableweb 7y ago
  This capitalization is automatic by the HN software and happens when you do the submission. You can edit the submission afterwards and it won't do it automatic anymore, but still does it the first time.
- treyfitty 7y ago
  It’s fairly understood as a rule to capitalize non minor words in titles. Secondly, nouns are to be always capitalized in titles. Decision fatigue taken together is a noun. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/capitalization/title-case https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/capitaliza...
  - jcelerier 7y ago
    but it isn't a title in the journalistic sense
    - iNate2000 7y ago
      How (and where) is the journalistic sense of "title" defined? To me, a non-journalist, a title is a title.
- remmargorp64 7y ago
  Meta: Please don't be so pedantic
  - kubanczyk 7y ago
    This ad hominem caused me to instinctively upvote the parent.
austincheney 7y ago
Decision fatigue is also major problem associated with the use of stimulants. Decision fatigue is a problem with exhaustion of cognitive endurance rather than a problem with cognitive overload. The former, like physical endurance exhaustion, occurs from becoming tired due to exercise over time without sufficient rest. The later occurs in a short time when the variables comprising a single, or focused set of, decision overwhelm the performance of a timely or adequate decision/response. When a person becomes tired from continuous exercise, whether physical or mental, there are symptoms that occur that negatively impact performance. These symptoms are a way of telling you that the body is entering a state of heightened stress that can be resolved, to some degree, by appropriate rest. Stimulants work in the body to increase some performance factors while simultaneously impairing the association between exhaustion with the need for rest. While these results from the use of stimulants can increase performance in a short term they are not a substitute for rest. Performance will degrade once the short-term high from the stimulant fades and especially as continued use results in tolerance to potentially catastrophic results. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3880463/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3880463/
- fortydegrees 7y ago
  Thank you for this. I am prescribed 50mg Elvanse and feel slightly worried about its long term effects - and also feel its effectiveness decreasing. I don't know where this ends. I don't want to keep increasing the dose, but without it I'm very ineffective.
  - austincheney 7y ago
    Yeah, don't do that. Visit with your doctor to discuss your options. Last year I ran an IG investigation about a person who was fired without documentation because of their declining performance resulting from prescription drug tolerance.
yboris 7y ago
A very related concept & book: Paradox of Choice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paradox_of_Choice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paradox_of_Choice The book was excellent, made me more-cognizant of choices and about having a strategy for dealing with it all (statisficing rather than maximizing). Great short summary by the author in his classic TED talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_the_paradox_of_choice?language=en https://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_the_paradox_of_choi...
DiabloD3 7y ago
Someone is probably going to quote that study where they say decision fatigue doesn't exist, and I'm going to head you off right now: It exists, everyone on HN has experienced it, and one of the best tools a successful businessman has is being able to differentiate between which decisions actually need their input, and none of us use that tool enough. Case in point: it is 2 pm, I am on HN replying to this. Also, someone is going to probably recommend reading "Thinking Fast and Slow". It's not at the top of my list of books to read, but you should read it once just so you understand the references to it.
- beefield 7y ago
  Decision fatigue is one of those things I am inclined to agree with my confirmation bias and just disregard studies that claim it does not exist. It just makes a bit too much sense.
  - hinkley 7y ago
    If someone got belligerent about it, I might allow that it's just plain fatigue. Being tired or worn out reduces our ability to function at a level we demand of ourselves or others, leading some people to some pretty bad issues they don't know how to handle. It can be vigilance (which for some of us includes deciding things), overstimulation (background noise), understimulation (loneliness, boredom), physical exhaustion, illness... any or all of these can induce us to make other sorts of highly suspect decisions, including how we spend our free time, money, or how we treat others.
- criddell 7y ago
  I think that study is about the existence of ego depletion (willpower is a limited resource).
  - rzzzt 7y ago
    Yes, and it's more like "if someone believes in it, it is limited, otherwise not": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_depletion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_depletion
jbob2000 7y ago
A great method to help you track decision fatigue is the spoon theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoon_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoon_theory. Basically; start the day with X number of spoons. Every time you make a decision, take away a spoon. Spoons run out? Your day is done!
- drdec 7y ago
  Now I need to decide how many spoons to start the day with. Am I allowed to use the spoon for the decision of what to have for lunch to eat it or has soup just become much more costly?
  - jbob2000 7y ago
    Start with 7 spoons. Or 8. It doesn't really matter because you just need something to start with, then you adjust it if it's too little (you had more energy after running out of spoons) or too many (you ran out of energy but still had spoons left). It's up to you what you spend spoons on. If you find that deciding what to eat is mentally costly, then yes, spend a spoon. Or set a habit to not make decisions about food and eat the same thing for lunch.
jonplackett 7y ago
The Paradox Of Choice is about part of this (how people want choices but become paralysed by too many) It’s one of my favourite TED talks ever. Highly recommend: https://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_the_paradox_of_choice?language=en https://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_the_paradox_of_choi... It’s also a book which I’m sure you can find on your own if you like the talk.
- allenu 7y ago
  It's one of my favorite talks and books as well. It really opened up my eyes to how I am often trying to maximize in a lot of ways in my life and that it was making me miserable. Now I try to limit places where I expend that mental energy and make sure it's worth it, and be okay with just "satisficing" where it really won't make a big difference.
  - jonplackett 7y ago
    If you like that did you also watch the one based on the book ‘Stumbling Upon Happiness’ https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_the_surprising_science_of_happiness/up-next https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_the_surprising_science... It seems to me almost like a scientific proof of Buddhism. This also made me really think about why I was perusing certain goals or not. The basic premise is that humans think they’re really good at predicting what will make them happy, when in reality we totally suck at it and make lots of deliberate choices that are bound to make us unhappy.
    - allenu 7y ago
      Yes! I watched that video as well around the same time and read the book. (Admittedly I was in a "positive psychology" kick at the time and was consuming anything about happiness.) I like your summary. An even more general way to look at is that we have less control over our minds (and moods) than we expect, so don't stress about it. :)
      - yboris 7y ago
fasouto 7y ago
I noticed that I have a "decision-quota" that I can spend every day, and sometimes I spend a lot of this energy on trivial tasks. So I created a small tool a while ago to learn Vue and to help me with this: https://roulettecarnival.com/ https://roulettecarnival.com/ , it's not close to be finished but it kinda works. I also use it with my team to make trivial decisions more fun.
- goferito 7y ago
  Cool tool. You should make it a PWA.
- tasogare 7y ago
  Nice idea. Frankly I don’t understand why some people care so much about some irrelevant details, like cloth to wear for a normal day. My girlfriend is expert at indecision and when she ask my opinion and I reply in a second she looks impressed and ask: why? Of course, I don’t reply "because both are equally valid so I just chose one arbitrarily", I come on with some believable argument. But the truth is spending thinking about the options is wasteful. I tried to teach her the head-tail method for binary choice but she’s not convinced.
  - richard78459 7y ago
    you are a genius, you should start girlfriend coach or somthing like that.
- mads 7y ago
  Looks like I am having tacos tomorrow. Thanks.
- AlphaWeaver 7y ago
  Awesome! This reminds me of something similar I built, called Bracket Based Decision Making! Site here: https://bracket-based-decision-making.firebaseapp.com/ https://bracket-based-decision-making.firebaseapp.com/ Code here: https://github.com/weaversam8/bracket-based-decision-making https://github.com/weaversam8/bracket-based-decision-making
cik 7y ago
I'm a hard believer in decision fatigue, and live my life accordingly. By doing so I've noticed that I've dramatically increased my quality of life - and quite frankly I no longer have "brain dead days". My favourite mechanism for doing so is prepping my clothes, prepping my my next day, and preparing my lunch - all the night before. Similarly knowing what we'll eat for dinner the next night. It might not work for everyone else - and I'm not the planner type, but this has dramatically improved my life.
- GaryNumanVevo 7y ago
  You might have autism then, my younger adult brother has to habitually organize his week before hand, clothes, meals, etc to cope with it. It certainly helps him focus during the week.
  - cik 7y ago
    Nope - I don't any any of those needs (few in general actually). It's more that this possible decision point is gone. It's uplifting, at least for me.
- m463 7y ago
  Planning meals is one step further than what I normally do, and probably the best way to do it. My technique is to always plan to have healthy stuff within easy reach. The step before that is to grocery shop when NOT hungry.
zimbatm 7y ago
Decision Fatigue: when you spend all your daily quota deciding which HN articles to read.
burkaman 7y ago
> For instance, judges in court have been shown to make poorer-quality decisions late in the day than they do early in the day. This references the study "Extraneous factors in judicial decisions": https://www.pnas.org/content/108/17/6889 https://www.pnas.org/content/108/17/6889 Here's an article, which has been posted on HN a few times, about why the conclusions of that study don't make sense: https://nautil.us/blog/impossibly-hungry-judges https://nautil.us/blog/impossibly-hungry-judges Here's a concise HN comment about how the observed effect is explained without decision fatigue: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14703990 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14703990
- riazrizvi 7y ago
  Decision Fatigue is like muscle fatigue in that it is mostly due to the waning of glycogen feeding your brain. When the cause is lack of glycogen due to hunger, as in the case of judges who have good snack discipline, they exhibit it just before meal times. When the cause is lack of glycogen from high insulin due to sugary snacks (as provided by your typical startup) you exhibit decision fatigue after you eat candy or drink soda. Exercise helps because it it raises your resting metabolic rate so more glycogen is flowing through your body at any one time. Stimulants help because they increase hormones like epinephrine and norepinephrine which also increase metabolic rate. There are secondary effects like nutrient deficiencies that can result in low essential neurotransmitters. And also if you stay focused on one thing, I think Troxler Fading can increase the the energy draw your brain needs to stay focused on that one thing. Probably as important is complexity/uncertainty. If glycogen delivery is your capacity to work, complexity/uncertainty is the primary demand that the work has on your brain. So if you can keep redrawing/refactoring your problem in simple terms, I find you can keep going when others cannot.
  - oehtXRwMkIs 7y ago
    Everything you said is precisely what is controversial and under question these days regarding both decision fatigue and ego depletion. The original experiments proposing such theories have failed to replicate.
blt 7y ago
The aviation community has developed a lot of interesting insights into human decision making. The concept of "pilot workload" is important. Most accidents happen under high pilot workload. An example of high workload is the takeoff: the pilot must make decisions about thrust, flaps, landing gear, pitch, altitude, and heading all within a brief window. The autopilot helps reduce workload during those brief high-workload moments. It's also critical for reducing decision fatigue on long flights. https://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/Portal:OGHFA https://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/Portal:OGHFA
js8 7y ago
I wonder if decision fatigue is related to our search for novelty. The decisions might be exciting at first, but then the novelty wears off and we become less interested.
pengaru 7y ago
Bandwidth is finite.
chrisdone 7y ago
I think Decision Fatigue has a long and rich treatment in the Buddhist and specifically Zen tradition. One of the true practical daily takeaways from Zen teachings I can share is that dithering and hesitation are acute forms of suffering and akin to a broken record repeating. A zen master may deliberate on a question, but will never dither. When presented with a choice, do the thinking it deserves but no more. A simple example: you're looking at a menu and they all look good. Pick the first one or the one closest to your finger. It doesn't matter. Also, don't cheat and be deferential; "I don't know, which would _you_ like?" Practice actively choosing. It'll do wonders in your daily life.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
artsyca 7y ago
Choosing a shirt and tie doesn't contribute to decision fatigue in fact modern professional dress is designed to mitigate decision fatigue in many small and subtle ways without reducing the process of dressing to absurdity

184 points by diablo1 7y ago

I usually set a time limit of how long it takes for me to make a decision Once I write something I don't go back to fix it until after its done

dumbfoundded 7y ago

I think this is common for entrepreneurs. I've found focusing on my personal mental health has generally been positive for my company. For example, I nap now whenever I want. Whether I lost sleep b/c of some late night problem or just stress, I vigilantly make sure I get enough sleep. Exercise is huge too. Your mental state builds on your physical state.

jariel 7y ago

In software, UI design and in creative fields, this is a real thing. If you have unlimited options (like in music production), you spend all of your time on a tangent-tangent-tangent caught up in decision after decision.

cperciva 7y ago

Note that the commonly cited example of judges being more likely to grant bail earlier in the morning and immediately after lunch is at least partly due to a confounder: The cases where the accused has a lawyer go first.

sanj 7y ago
Also, easier cases often go first.
- sixothree 7y ago
  Surprised there was no control for that sort of thing.

Eduard 7y ago

Meta: please don't capitalize generic terms. Wikipedia calls this article correctly "Decision fatigue", not "Decision Fatigue". I noticed that lately at HN, Wikipedia articles' titles get capitalized. It's annoying and without any purpose, even misleading.

capableweb 7y ago
This capitalization is automatic by the HN software and happens when you do the submission. You can edit the submission afterwards and it won't do it automatic anymore, but still does it the first time.
treyfitty 7y ago
It’s fairly understood as a rule to capitalize non minor words in titles. Secondly, nouns are to be always capitalized in titles. Decision fatigue taken together is a noun. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/capitalization/title-case https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/capitaliza...
- jcelerier 7y ago
  but it isn't a title in the journalistic sense
  - iNate2000 7y ago
    How (and where) is the journalistic sense of "title" defined? To me, a non-journalist, a title is a title.
remmargorp64 7y ago
Meta: Please don't be so pedantic
- kubanczyk 7y ago
  This ad hominem caused me to instinctively upvote the parent.

austincheney 7y ago

Decision fatigue is also major problem associated with the use of stimulants. Decision fatigue is a problem with exhaustion of cognitive endurance rather than a problem with cognitive overload. The former, like physical endurance exhaustion, occurs from becoming tired due to exercise over time without sufficient rest. The later occurs in a short time when the variables comprising a single, or focused set of, decision overwhelm the performance of a timely or adequate decision/response. When a person becomes tired from continuous exercise, whether physical or mental, there are symptoms that occur that negatively impact performance. These symptoms are a way of telling you that the body is entering a state of heightened stress that can be resolved, to some degree, by appropriate rest. Stimulants work in the body to increase some performance factors while simultaneously impairing the association between exhaustion with the need for rest. While these results from the use of stimulants can increase performance in a short term they are not a substitute for rest. Performance will degrade once the short-term high from the stimulant fades and especially as continued use results in tolerance to potentially catastrophic results. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3880463/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3880463/

fortydegrees 7y ago
Thank you for this. I am prescribed 50mg Elvanse and feel slightly worried about its long term effects - and also feel its effectiveness decreasing. I don't know where this ends. I don't want to keep increasing the dose, but without it I'm very ineffective.
- austincheney 7y ago
  Yeah, don't do that. Visit with your doctor to discuss your options. Last year I ran an IG investigation about a person who was fired without documentation because of their declining performance resulting from prescription drug tolerance.

yboris 7y ago

A very related concept & book: Paradox of Choice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paradox_of_Choice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paradox_of_Choice The book was excellent, made me more-cognizant of choices and about having a strategy for dealing with it all (statisficing rather than maximizing). Great short summary by the author in his classic TED talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_the_paradox_of_choice?language=en https://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_the_paradox_of_choi...

DiabloD3 7y ago

Someone is probably going to quote that study where they say decision fatigue doesn't exist, and I'm going to head you off right now: It exists, everyone on HN has experienced it, and one of the best tools a successful businessman has is being able to differentiate between which decisions actually need their input, and none of us use that tool enough. Case in point: it is 2 pm, I am on HN replying to this. Also, someone is going to probably recommend reading "Thinking Fast and Slow". It's not at the top of my list of books to read, but you should read it once just so you understand the references to it.

beefield 7y ago
Decision fatigue is one of those things I am inclined to agree with my confirmation bias and just disregard studies that claim it does not exist. It just makes a bit too much sense.
- hinkley 7y ago
  If someone got belligerent about it, I might allow that it's just plain fatigue. Being tired or worn out reduces our ability to function at a level we demand of ourselves or others, leading some people to some pretty bad issues they don't know how to handle. It can be vigilance (which for some of us includes deciding things), overstimulation (background noise), understimulation (loneliness, boredom), physical exhaustion, illness... any or all of these can induce us to make other sorts of highly suspect decisions, including how we spend our free time, money, or how we treat others.
criddell 7y ago
I think that study is about the existence of ego depletion (willpower is a limited resource).
- rzzzt 7y ago
  Yes, and it's more like "if someone believes in it, it is limited, otherwise not": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_depletion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_depletion

jbob2000 7y ago

A great method to help you track decision fatigue is the spoon theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoon_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoon_theory. Basically; start the day with X number of spoons. Every time you make a decision, take away a spoon. Spoons run out? Your day is done!

drdec 7y ago
Now I need to decide how many spoons to start the day with. Am I allowed to use the spoon for the decision of what to have for lunch to eat it or has soup just become much more costly?
- jbob2000 7y ago
  Start with 7 spoons. Or 8. It doesn't really matter because you just need something to start with, then you adjust it if it's too little (you had more energy after running out of spoons) or too many (you ran out of energy but still had spoons left). It's up to you what you spend spoons on. If you find that deciding what to eat is mentally costly, then yes, spend a spoon. Or set a habit to not make decisions about food and eat the same thing for lunch.

jonplackett 7y ago

The Paradox Of Choice is about part of this (how people want choices but become paralysed by too many) It’s one of my favourite TED talks ever. Highly recommend: https://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_the_paradox_of_choice?language=en https://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_the_paradox_of_choi... It’s also a book which I’m sure you can find on your own if you like the talk.

allenu 7y ago
It's one of my favorite talks and books as well. It really opened up my eyes to how I am often trying to maximize in a lot of ways in my life and that it was making me miserable. Now I try to limit places where I expend that mental energy and make sure it's worth it, and be okay with just "satisficing" where it really won't make a big difference.
- jonplackett 7y ago
  If you like that did you also watch the one based on the book ‘Stumbling Upon Happiness’ https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_the_surprising_science_of_happiness/up-next https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_the_surprising_science... It seems to me almost like a scientific proof of Buddhism. This also made me really think about why I was perusing certain goals or not. The basic premise is that humans think they’re really good at predicting what will make them happy, when in reality we totally suck at it and make lots of deliberate choices that are bound to make us unhappy.
  - allenu 7y ago
    Yes! I watched that video as well around the same time and read the book. (Admittedly I was in a "positive psychology" kick at the time and was consuming anything about happiness.) I like your summary. An even more general way to look at is that we have less control over our minds (and moods) than we expect, so don't stress about it. :)
    - yboris 7y ago

fasouto 7y ago

I noticed that I have a "decision-quota" that I can spend every day, and sometimes I spend a lot of this energy on trivial tasks. So I created a small tool a while ago to learn Vue and to help me with this: https://roulettecarnival.com/ https://roulettecarnival.com/ , it's not close to be finished but it kinda works. I also use it with my team to make trivial decisions more fun.

goferito 7y ago
Cool tool. You should make it a PWA.
tasogare 7y ago
Nice idea. Frankly I don’t understand why some people care so much about some irrelevant details, like cloth to wear for a normal day. My girlfriend is expert at indecision and when she ask my opinion and I reply in a second she looks impressed and ask: why? Of course, I don’t reply "because both are equally valid so I just chose one arbitrarily", I come on with some believable argument. But the truth is spending thinking about the options is wasteful. I tried to teach her the head-tail method for binary choice but she’s not convinced.
- richard78459 7y ago
  you are a genius, you should start girlfriend coach or somthing like that.
mads 7y ago
Looks like I am having tacos tomorrow. Thanks.
AlphaWeaver 7y ago
Awesome! This reminds me of something similar I built, called Bracket Based Decision Making! Site here: https://bracket-based-decision-making.firebaseapp.com/ https://bracket-based-decision-making.firebaseapp.com/ Code here: https://github.com/weaversam8/bracket-based-decision-making https://github.com/weaversam8/bracket-based-decision-making

cik 7y ago

I'm a hard believer in decision fatigue, and live my life accordingly. By doing so I've noticed that I've dramatically increased my quality of life - and quite frankly I no longer have "brain dead days". My favourite mechanism for doing so is prepping my clothes, prepping my my next day, and preparing my lunch - all the night before. Similarly knowing what we'll eat for dinner the next night. It might not work for everyone else - and I'm not the planner type, but this has dramatically improved my life.

GaryNumanVevo 7y ago
You might have autism then, my younger adult brother has to habitually organize his week before hand, clothes, meals, etc to cope with it. It certainly helps him focus during the week.
- cik 7y ago
  Nope - I don't any any of those needs (few in general actually). It's more that this possible decision point is gone. It's uplifting, at least for me.
m463 7y ago
Planning meals is one step further than what I normally do, and probably the best way to do it. My technique is to always plan to have healthy stuff within easy reach. The step before that is to grocery shop when NOT hungry.

zimbatm 7y ago

Decision Fatigue: when you spend all your daily quota deciding which HN articles to read.

burkaman 7y ago

> For instance, judges in court have been shown to make poorer-quality decisions late in the day than they do early in the day. This references the study "Extraneous factors in judicial decisions": https://www.pnas.org/content/108/17/6889 https://www.pnas.org/content/108/17/6889 Here's an article, which has been posted on HN a few times, about why the conclusions of that study don't make sense: https://nautil.us/blog/impossibly-hungry-judges https://nautil.us/blog/impossibly-hungry-judges Here's a concise HN comment about how the observed effect is explained without decision fatigue: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14703990 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14703990

riazrizvi 7y ago
Decision Fatigue is like muscle fatigue in that it is mostly due to the waning of glycogen feeding your brain. When the cause is lack of glycogen due to hunger, as in the case of judges who have good snack discipline, they exhibit it just before meal times. When the cause is lack of glycogen from high insulin due to sugary snacks (as provided by your typical startup) you exhibit decision fatigue after you eat candy or drink soda. Exercise helps because it it raises your resting metabolic rate so more glycogen is flowing through your body at any one time. Stimulants help because they increase hormones like epinephrine and norepinephrine which also increase metabolic rate. There are secondary effects like nutrient deficiencies that can result in low essential neurotransmitters. And also if you stay focused on one thing, I think Troxler Fading can increase the the energy draw your brain needs to stay focused on that one thing. Probably as important is complexity/uncertainty. If glycogen delivery is your capacity to work, complexity/uncertainty is the primary demand that the work has on your brain. So if you can keep redrawing/refactoring your problem in simple terms, I find you can keep going when others cannot.
- oehtXRwMkIs 7y ago
  Everything you said is precisely what is controversial and under question these days regarding both decision fatigue and ego depletion. The original experiments proposing such theories have failed to replicate.

blt 7y ago

The aviation community has developed a lot of interesting insights into human decision making. The concept of "pilot workload" is important. Most accidents happen under high pilot workload. An example of high workload is the takeoff: the pilot must make decisions about thrust, flaps, landing gear, pitch, altitude, and heading all within a brief window. The autopilot helps reduce workload during those brief high-workload moments. It's also critical for reducing decision fatigue on long flights. https://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/Portal:OGHFA https://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/Portal:OGHFA

js8 7y ago

I wonder if decision fatigue is related to our search for novelty. The decisions might be exciting at first, but then the novelty wears off and we become less interested.

pengaru 7y ago

Bandwidth is finite.

chrisdone 7y ago

I think Decision Fatigue has a long and rich treatment in the Buddhist and specifically Zen tradition. One of the true practical daily takeaways from Zen teachings I can share is that dithering and hesitation are acute forms of suffering and akin to a broken record repeating. A zen master may deliberate on a question, but will never dither. When presented with a choice, do the thinking it deserves but no more. A simple example: you're looking at a menu and they all look good. Pick the first one or the one closest to your finger. It doesn't matter. Also, don't cheat and be deferential; "I don't know, which would _you_ like?" Practice actively choosing. It'll do wonders in your daily life.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

artsyca 7y ago

Choosing a shirt and tie doesn't contribute to decision fatigue in fact modern professional dress is designed to mitigate decision fatigue in many small and subtle ways without reducing the process of dressing to absurdity