Decision Fatigue in the Social Sectors

United Nations peace keepers, Portuguese Battalion escorting us to the airport, Central African Republic 2017

Decision fatigue is the mental strain and depletion caused by making a decision. Decisions require cognitive processing. Even the smallest decisions can consume mental energy. Decision related stress is not always a bad thing. Positive stress, or eustress, is essential to making us stronger and facilitating growth. In the same way that muscles adapt and strengthen in the days after a run, the mind can also grow, and acquire experience, after a set of decisions or a period of heavier cognitive load. 

As social sector professionals, we are often working in environments where massive events like an earthquake or a war overtake all good decision making processes, and we are reacting in the moment using immediate feedback based on accrued experience and past mistakes. And yet even in these critical environments, there is space to make the best possible decision based on the information available. 

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The brain and body are making thousands of unconscious programmed decisions each day, determined by experience, biology, and circumstance. The brain also makes thousands of conscious choices each day. More routine questions like: What should I eat? When should I eat? What shirt do I wear? When should I finish this task or move on to another? When should I work out today? - all occupy our minds. 

More consequential strategic questions in the social sector require context like: Is this work project aligned with my goals? I have four crucial things to finish today, which one should I do next? Am I aligned and on the right track from a work perspective? Are my finances and administration properly managed? All decisions lie on the spectrum of no consequence to massively consequential. The timeline of decision consequences ranges from immediate to decades or even hundreds of years. 

Every living system, like our brain or body, has a certain level of ‘decision capital’ or battery power that can be used for decision-making. These levels are determined by biological conditions and training. When we make decisions, we draw down those capacities to perform the task. We then replenish that capacity and increase that capacity over time through recovery and repair. 

Small decisions require less mental lift than larger more consequential decisions, yet they still have an energy cost, requiring a conscious decision with consequences that matter. 


Decision Mindsets
As social sector strategists, we need to save our limited cognitive resources to decide about things that matter, both in the immediate and long term. Differentiating between what matters to you as a person and a professional is the first step to a smart decision making mindset. Clarifying principles, mission and focus through journaling or other ways of reflective thinking, lays the foundation for good decision making. Adopting the mindset that our attention, focus, and decision making moments are precious and finite can help us say no to the inevitable frivolous deluge of decisions in life and work. 

Decision strategies
Decision strategies help us understand the decisions that come before us. Recognizing the importance and timeline of each choice can help us design a basic algorithm for decisions: 

Delegating decisions - If relevant, delegate this decision to someone you trust on your team or in your family. This can also mean deciding, in a particular situation, that this is not the decision that you should make, and instead, delegating this to a medical professional, an advisor, or partner. 

Letting a few small bad things happen by not deciding - You may not have to decide about everything and it may not matter. Letting go and not making some decisions that might matter to others can free up your mental bandwidth for things that indeed do matter. 

Automating decisions - Deciding things once,  and then automating them can free up crucial cognitive resources for big picture strategy,  and creates the time for noticing and deciding on something urgent, either positive, or negative. 

Algoryzing decisions - Many decisions fall into repeatable patterns. Set up repeatable processes or checklists.  As a business owner, each year I have to choose a health care plan that works for my situation. I have a spreadsheet where I can easily enter the plan details, do a comparison and make a choice each year without starting the process from scratch. Simple things like repetitive grocery lists or the way the kids' school lunches get packed are also a decision algorithm. 

Being still for the big ones - When a truly consequential decision is on your plate, such as  an ethical dilemma, a relationship choice, a pivot, or completing a project choice, take the time to consider and weigh options, looking at the immediate to long term consequences weighted against your core personal principles and planning. 

Decision Tactics
After implementing the decisions strategies above,  taking time to recover either within the hour, within a day, or over the period of a week following a flurry of decisions, helps keep us sharp for making the right choices when the next big challenge comes around. 

Making your own good decisions
Luck, both good and bad, is very real and always at play. Larger forces can overtake our best choice architecture. Eliminating small choices can make space for better reasoning on larger, more important homies. Within the bounds of positive and negative luck, we can develop systems to limit our decision fatigue and be ready to make the right call when it matters on our social sector goals, or personal life paths. 

Happy Trails.

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