How to Make Smart Decisions

In a study conducted in 2011, Researchers followed a group of judges who deciding whether or not to offer imprisoned individuals a chance at parole.

Logically, To drive a reasonable decision one might inspect aspects like:

• imprisoned person’s crime,

• His existing sentence,

• and, his current behavior in his sentence.

These factors could be the primary considerations to make a reasonable decision and treat everyone equally. But there is a interesting finding this study suggest.

You see, while these details may be duly examined, one variable researchers found had a remarkably large impact on the decision making skills of the judges, and that is: The time of day.

Imprisoned people who met with the board for there matter in the morning were far more likely to receive parole than those whose cases were reviewed in the afternoon, even if their crimes and sentences were practically similar.

This finding might seem strange, but the researcher’s had an explanation. And it was quite simple: In the afternoon, the judges were likely exhausted. Specifically, Judges were experiencing decision fatigue.

What is decision fatigue:

Decision fatigue is a difficulty in making a good decision experienced as a result of the number of decisions one needs to make.

Simply put, This kind of cognitive exhaustion occurs after a extended period of decision making. This fatigue can make people more impulsive and less confident with their decision making skills.

The dangers of decision fatigue are clear in high-stakes scenarios such as the study demonstrate above. But it can also have a serious impact on our day-to-day lives.

So what kinds of choices lead us to this state, and what can we do to fight fatigue?

Everything our bodies does, it requires energy — whether it is physical or mental.

Although the specific resources depleted during mental strain remain uncertain, research suggests that many people have a daily limit for making decisions.

Once this threshold is reached, many people consciously choose to "take it easy" and postpone serious thinking about new decisions until another day.

The speed at which you reach this threshold depends on several variables, which includes the frequency, the complexity, and the novelty of the decisions you face.

For example, choosing what to eat for dinner isn't very daunting. Not only is this decision limited to what's available in the fridge, it's also a choice you expect to make once a day with fairly low stakes. You could either choose to cook something at home or may decide to have a take out. It’s that simple.

But, what if you had a trickier decision to make?

Imagine:

You are driving on highway and suddenly your car’s tire puncture down and you need to replace it right away. you are stuck and find yourself in the middle of nowhere.

This is an unexpected, complicated situation where you have to make a decision which could have serious consequences. like maybe you are in a time crunch and you wanna get somewhere. In this case, what would you do?

Well, Since this is a decision you don’t often make, you’ll have to identify what considerations are most important in this situation.

The time pressure can add additional layer stress both during and after the decision-making process. This takes up a lot of cognitive energy, As you spend more energy wondering, how to get out of this jam and what can to get back on time?

After just a single decision of this magnitude, most people would have already reached their decision-making threshold and any decision after this might be a product of decision fatigue.

This thought experiment paints a scenario which is is quite huge for a normal person to handle, But what if there were individuals who make decisions like these every day?

Well, there are professions such as judges where individuals need to make multiple high-stakes decisions every day including life-or-death, And decision fatigue can be much more dangerous in these scenarios.

Many researchers are especially concerned about decision fatigue in medical.

Doctors often work long shifts full of life-or-death decisions, and some studies have found that medical workers are much more likely to make critical mistakes when working for extended periods.

So what can we do to avoid fatigue in our daily lives.

One simple and obvious strategy is to make fewer daily decisions, tackling your to-do list over a span multiple days, or delaying big decisions to be tackled one at a time.

It’s also typically less daunting to take or offer advice on a hard decision than it is to make that choice yourself.

So if you think about it, it can be helpful if imagine your decisions as someone else’s before considering how the consequences impact you specifically and adjust them in your best interest.

That’s all folks!

I just wanna say that it's essential to remember that not every choice is equally important, and learning to manage them and knowing how to relax about the small stuff can help you save energy for the decisions that truly matter.

Thanks for reading this far, I am deeply grateful for your support so keep on being awesome and I’ll catch you next week with some amazing and wonderful self-help stuff. stay tuned for that, until then I’m signing off.

Your Dear friend,

RadZadx