Decision fatigue

Do I move the laundry out of the dryer to the basket, where I know full well it will sit for a couple of days? Or just leave it in the dryer for those couple of days and run it for a few minutes Wednesday afternoon when I have time to fold stuff? Toast for dinner, or macaroni and cheese from scratch? Take the trash out even though there’s just a little bit since I was gone most of last week, or leave it until next week and risk a Trash Overtakement? Is “overtakement” a word?

I can’t decide.

I have Decision Fatigue.

Psychologists say we make about 35,000 decisions a day. Most of them are small, like “Should I put oat milk or almond milk in this coffee that I’m only drinking to stave off a tension headache?” or “Is it socially acceptable to wear this sweater for the fourth day in a row if I haven’t spilled anything on it yet and also nobody has seen me in it?” But generally by about 4 PM, my brain has turned into a bowl of overcooked oatmeal. The “Choice Muscle” has snapped. I am officially out of order.

The problem isn’t the big stuff. I can handle the big stuff. If the well stops running or a friend calls me from the ER, I go into “Crisis Mode.” I am a goddess of efficiency. I call the well company; I  drive to the hospital while weeping; I handle it.

But ask me what I want for dinner? Them’s fighting words.

“What do you want to eat?” is the most violent sentence in the English language. It requires me to scan the inventory of the fridge, calculate the expiration dates of the milk (which already has a zip code, let’s be honest), and project my future cravings into a void and instead try to concentrate on what I want to eat NOW. Let me tell you – I hate the “what do you want to eat” question so much that when Tim would ask me, fifteen minutes before he wanted dinner on the table, “what do you want to do for dinner tonight” I would just stare at him with my eyes slowly enlarging to Marty Feldman size. I finally put a three-week rotating calendar on the fridge with dinner suggestions, so I could just point and say “what’s on the menu” (even though he hadn’t noticed I’d started cooking whatever it was fifteen minutes earlier). (Bless his heart.)

The psychology behind Decision Fatigue is actually pretty rude. And something I’m pretty sure I’ve blogged about before, too. Apparently, every time you make a choice—no matter how small—you’re depleting a finite tank of mental energy. It’s called “ego depletion.” By the time I’ve decided which email to answer first and whether or not to tell the telemarketer that I hope he finds peace but also loses my number, the tank is empty. I’m just standing in the middle of the kitchen, clutching a spatula, wondering if I can call “toast and a spoonful of cake frosting” a balanced meal. (Spoiler: I can, and I have.) Ego Depletion means that you’ve drained your decision-making tank to empty, and the reduced capacity to decide on things can lead to poor decisions, no decisions, and impulsive behavior. Let’s not talk about that frosting.

Decision making while dealing with grief is a special kind of Hell. You stand there in the grocery store, and suddenly you’re crying in Aisle 4 because you can’t decide between Spicy Brown or Honey Mustard, but really… you’re crying because you shouldn’t have to choose at all. You’re crying because the person who used to help you choose isn’t there, or because the version of you that cared about mustard is gone.

And these days? When the world is on fire? Before lunch you’ve decided whether or not to take a shower, what to put in your coffee, not to mention decisions you have to make if you have kids, what route to take to work (unless you work from home, and in that case you decide to put on pants or not). But you’ve also decided if you’re going to call your Senators and Representatives that morning, what to call them about, whether you should email them instead, or do both. You’ve decided if you have it in you to check the news and see what’s on fire this morning, if you do check the news then you decide if you need to fact check anything, you decide if you want to argue about it on the Internet with fools or not. You decide who you’re going to protect that day, who you’re going to speak up for or how to center someone else’s voice that needs to be heard, whether you have any money to donate and if so to what organization.

It’s exhausting. And then we have to choose to fall down, or be resliliant.

Resilience, I’ve decided, is just the ability to keep making choices even when you’re vibrating with exhaustion. It’s the act of picking up the dirty sweater and putting it on anyway. It’s not about making the right choice; it’s just about making a choice so the world keeps spinning.

If you’re currently paralyzed by the thought of folding the towels or answering that one text message from your cousin that says “hey,” here is my radically honest guide to surviving decision fatigue:

• Lower the Bar. Then lower it again. If you can’t decide what to cook, eat toast. Toast is a miracle food. It’s warm, it’s crunchy, and it requires zero executive function. Toaster broken? Eat a slice of bread. It’s comfort food!
• The “Coin Toss” Rule. If you’re stuck between two choices for more than sixty seconds, flip a coin. The secret isn’t that the coin decides for you; it’s that while the coin is in the air, you suddenly realize which one you’re hoping for. If the coin lands on “Spicy Brown Mustard” and you feel a pang of disappointment, get the Honey Mustard. Move on.
• Uniforms are a Mercy. There’s a reason Steve Jobs wore the same thing every day. He wasn’t just a tech bro; he was a man who knew he only had so many “choice points” in a day. I have four pairs of the same dark gray yoga pants. It’s not a lack of style; it’s a survival strategy. (Also, they have pockets!)
• Forgive the Mess. Your worth is not measured by the number of chores you completed today. Some days, your only job is to stay hydrated and not scream into the void. That is a successful day.

We spend so much time trying to optimize our lives. We want the best workout, the best meal plan, the best parenting strategy, the best way to process our trauma. We treat our brains like processors that just need the right software update.

But we’re just animals, really. Weary, hopeful, slightly smelly animals trying to find a warm place to sleep.

Last night, I went outside with the dogs before taking them to bed. It was dark, and the air smelled like a slightly hot day, and oddly not at all like the 325 acre fire that burned the day before. I looked up, and the stars were absolutely on fire. They don’t have to decide anything. They just burn. They don’t wonder if they’re being “productive” or if they should have focused more on their career in their twenties. They just exist in this massive, terrifying, gorgeous vacuum.

I stood there for a second, feeling very small and very tired, but I didn’t feel overwhelmed. I felt invited. The universe is big enough to hold my indecision. It’s big enough to hold my grief and my wrinkled laundry and the fact that I’m currently 80% coffee and 20% spite.

We’re all – each and every one of us – all just doing our best with a limited battery. We’re all tired. We’ve all decided too many things today and need a rest. And that’s OK. I’m OK. You’re OK. Rest now; decisions will still be there tomorrow, and the sun will rise and set on those, too.