Decision Fatigue: Why Fewer Choices Make Better Ones

The idea

Most people have felt it. After a long day of meetings, emails and small choices, deciding what to cook for dinner feels harder than it should. You choose the easy option, postpone or let someone else pick. Shopping for a major purchase, comparing dozens of options, can leave you exhausted and more likely to buy whatever is in front of you at the end.

The term “decision fatigue” was popularized in the 2000s and 2010s, notably in the book Willpower by Roy Baumeister and John Tierney (2011). It is often illustrated with the story of successful people who wear the same clothes every day to save their decision energy for important things.

The evidence

The research behind the idea is more mixed than the popular version.

Ego depletion

The main theoretical basis was ego depletion, developed by Roy Baumeister and colleagues from the late 1990s. In typical experiments, participants who first had to exert self control, for example by resisting cookies, then gave up sooner on a difficult puzzle. The interpretation was that self control and decision making draw on the same limited resource, which gets used up.

Hundreds of studies seemed to support this. Then, in 2016, a preregistered replication led by Martin Hagger and Nikos Chatzisarantis, run in 23 laboratories with more than 2,000 participants, found an effect close to zero. Defenders argued the task used was a weak test, and later studies have produced mixed results. The fair summary is that the simple model of willpower as a fuel tank is not well supported.

The parole judges

The most cited real world study is by Shai Danziger, Jonathan Levav and Liora Avnaim-Pesso, published in PNAS in 2011. They analyzed more than 1,000 parole decisions by Israeli judges and found that the proportion of favorable rulings started at around 65 percent at the beginning of each session and fell to nearly zero by the end, before jumping back after a food break.

The finding was striking and widely reported as proof of decision fatigue. Critics, including Keren Weinshall-Margel and John Shapard, argued that the order of cases was not random: unrepresented prisoners, whose cases were less likely to succeed, tended to be heard later in sessions, and judges tended to schedule breaks after finishing certain cases. Later simulations suggested that such factors could produce a pattern like the one observed even without any fatigue. The original authors responded, and the debate is not fully settled. But the study is no longer the clean demonstration it was once presented as.

What remains true

Even if the mechanism is uncertain, some things are well established or simply sensible.

• Tired people decide worse. Sleep deprivation clearly impairs judgment.
• Too many options can paralyze. Large choice sets can make people defer or feel less satisfied with what they pick, though this “choice overload” effect also varies a lot between studies.
• Defaults matter. When people are busy or uncertain, they tend to accept whatever option requires no action, which is why default settings have such power.
• Attention is limited. Whatever the cause, you cannot give full attention to everything. Spending it on trivial choices leaves less for important ones.

A Stoic angle

The Stoics have something specific to add. Much of what wears us out is not really decision making. It is fretting over indifferents as if they were important: which of two nearly identical products to buy, what someone will think of an outfit, whether a minor email strikes the right tone.

In Stoic terms, these choices concern things that do not affect whether you live well. They deserve a quick, reasonable choice, not deliberation. Seeing them that way is itself a relief. Epictetus, in chapter 33 of the Enchiridion, recommends simplicity in food, clothing and possessions, taking only what the body needs. Part of the point is freedom from the endless small choices that luxury creates.

Seneca makes a related point about busyness. In On the Shortness of Life, he describes people so occupied with trivial affairs that they never get to the important ones. Busy people, he says, are the last to learn how to live.

Practical ways to reduce decision load

Decide once, apply many times

Rules and routines turn repeated decisions into one. “I eat the same breakfast on weekdays.” “I answer email at 11 and 4.” “I don’t buy anything over a set amount without waiting 48 hours.” The decision is made once, in calm, and then applied.

Lower the stakes of trivial choices

For things that do not matter much, set a limit: pick from the first three options, or take the first one that meets your basic criteria. Psychologist Barry Schwartz, borrowing a term from Herbert Simon, calls this “satisficing” as opposed to “maximizing”, and people who satisfice on trivial choices tend to report less regret.

Decide important things when rested

Schedule significant decisions for times when you are fresh, often the morning, and avoid making them late at night, hungry or angry. If you must decide under fatigue, write down your reasoning and review it the next day before acting.

Remove options you never want

Unsubscribe, uninstall, unfollow. Every option you have already decided against still costs a little attention each time it appears.

Separate deciding from executing

Make the plan on Sunday, then follow it during the week without reopening it daily. This is also the key to holding a decision.

Ask the Stoic question

Before deliberating, ask: does this choice touch anything that matters, my character, my obligations, the people who depend on me? If not, choose quickly and move on.