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 NUMBER_TOKEN NUMBER_TOKEN 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 sliced 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 batteries 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 rapper 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 jade ramon or the george not 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 but first a quick word from my sponsor this video is brought
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