Decision Fatigue.
Make fewer, bigger decisions.
Jenelle, my wife, grew up in a big, close-knit family where decisions were made through conversation, consensus, and shared values. Everyone had (has) a voice. While that approach built deep connection between Jenelle, her siblings, and her parents, it’s very different from how I tend to move through the world.
I lean toward streamlining, simplifying, and making only a few big calls with precision and speed. I tend to make decisions independently.
You can imagine how this plays out in our home: Jenelle often calls me before making small decisions, about curtains, or Ford’s bedtime, and while I appreciate being included, I sometimes find myself irritated by the need to spend energy on low-level decisions that she has the context to make on her own.
That contrast got me thinking: what could I learn about different decision-making styles that might help us, and others, co-exist with our different decision making styles with less friction? We’re all wired differently, and these style clashes show up in homes and offices around the world.
My hypothesis is this: each of us has a limited capacity to make decisions in a given day, and how we spend that energy directly impacts the quality of our choices.
Think about the volume of decisions you make: what to eat, what to wear, what route to drive. We each make thousands of decisions every day. But, I’d argue that the people we admire most make far fewer decisions, not more. That’s what leaves them with the clarity and energy to make bigger, better calls.
This is one of the differences between executives and other professionals: executives often make just a few high-impact decisions in a day, a week, even a quarter. To me, that’s been freeing.
So, what can we learn about decision-making?
How can we protect our capacity to make great decisions by simply making fewer?
Let’s explore.
The Cost of Choice
Each day, we’re faced with far more decisions that we realize. Most are small and seemingly insignificant on their own, but together, they create a mental tax that drains our focus and clarity.
What to eat. What to wear. Which app to open. Email. Notifications. Text messages. It all adds up.
We each have a finite capacity for decision-making each day. Every small choice chips away at that reserve. Sure, time is finite, but its more than that. It’s about cognitive load and the very real phenomenon of decision fatigue. Most are so taxed by the small decisions that by the time a meaningful decision shows up, the kind that actually shape our lives, we’re often too depleted to give it the attention it deserves. And the quality of our decisions suffers for it.
Have you ever wondered why high-performers often wear the same outfit every day or outsource meal prep and daily routines? These are intentional strategies to reduce cognitive friction and preserve energy for higher-impact decisions later in the day.
“Decision fatigue helps explain why ordinarily sensible people get angry at colleagues and families, splurge on clothes, and can’t resist the fries. No matter how rational and high-minded you try to be, you can’t make decision after decision without paying a biological price.”
— Roy F. Baumeister, The New York Times, 2011
Fewer, Bigger Bets
I didn’t come to this realization through a book or a podcast. I came to it by living through the friction at work and at home. After recently taking on several new responsibilities, I found myself overloaded with decisions and short-tempered with both my colleagues and my family. Something had to change. I had to delegate more effectively, and I had to find a way to make fewer decisions throughout the day.
When everything is urgent, nothing is important. It’s impossible to be strategic when most of your time is spent on small, in-the-moment decisions.
So I started experimenting:
What if I focused on making just a few high-leverage decisions each week?
What if, instead of reacting to everything, I proactively chose what deserves a decision?
I began by delegating high cognitive load tasks to my team. I declined more meetings than I accepted and blocked out intentional focus time on my calendar. Instead of making every decision myself, I worked on providing clear intent, challenging my team to make their own calls and bring me their reasoning instead. Over time, they needed my input less and less.
To start my week, I now ask:
What are the 1–3 decisions I can make this week that will unlock progress or eliminate a dozen smaller ones?
Which choices deserve thought, intention, and strategy?
What can I opt out of entirely?
This shift is having a real impact. It gave me back time. I’m more patient. And it made space for the decisions that actually move the needle, at work and at home.
Design Your Decision Environment
If you want to protect your energy and make better decisions, start by designing your environment to support discernment. Make intentional choices. Design your day to reduce noise and preserve your capacity for what matters most.
If you need a tool to help get started, I’m a big fan of the “Full Focus Planner” by Michael Hyatt.
Start with the basics. Use AI. Automate everything you can. Eat the same breakfast, or skip it altogether with an intermittent fasting schedule (I follow 16:8).
Wear a variation of the same outfit most days, your “uniform”. But please, resist the urge to default to athleisure. What you wear says a lot about you. If you choose a uniform, make sure it’s saying something intentional.
Standardize your calendar. The less energy you spend on low-impact choices, the more you’ll have for the big ones. Create blocks for meetings, blocks for focused work, and blocks for the things that actually matter to you: fitness, learning, skills development.
Look for leverage in your decisions. Make the kind of choices that simplify others downstream. One good decision should eliminate the need to make five more. Delegate with clarity. Give intent, not just tasks, so you're not constantly being pulled back in to review or approve. (David Marquet has a lot to say about this in “Turn the Ship Around!”)
Say “no” more often. For me, this has been huge. And believe it or not, “no” is a complete sentence. You don’t need to justify it. Boundaries are they’re filters that protect your time, your energy, and your focus. Set them, and stick to them.
And finally, protect your peak hours like your life depends on it. Each of us has a different circadian rhythm, and as Dan Pink explores in “When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing”, timing can be the difference between success and failure… or even life and death. Don’t waste your best mental energy on emails, meetings, or reactive tasks. Use it to think strategically. To solve real problems. To move something forward.
Good decisions don’t come from working harder. They come from creating the space to think clearly. Create the space, and protect it with ferocity.
Clarity Is a Choice
Decision fatigue is a signal. A signal that your priorities might be out of alignment. That you’re doing too much. And that can have real consequences.
You’re not exhausted because you’re doing too much.
You’re exhausted because too much of what you’re doing is inconsequential.
This is something Jenelle and I are working through in our home, and something I’ve made real progress on at work. As I mentioned earlier, we come from different decision-making models. Jenelle’s is grounded in collaboration and consideration, mine in clarity and constraint. Neither is wrong. But when the volume of decisions outpaces the value of those decisions, something breaks.
When you notice different decision-making styles, at home or in the office, that’s not a problem to avoid. Have the hard conversation. Do the hard work.
The people who build lasting impact aren’t the ones making a thousand micro-decisions a day. They’re the ones making a handful of big ones, and delegate the rest.
So here’s the challenge:
Make fewer decisions.
Make bigger decisions.
And make them count.
Do it to be present.
Do it for peace.
Do it for your business and your family.
And do it for the people who rely on your clarity more than your control.