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Is this you? If someone asks you to make a few simple decisions at one point in the day, will your ability to make more decisions decline as the day goes on?
This is extremely foreign to me, and I want to know if this is a thing, or just this person.
If it's a thing, then maybe we can now understand why we are where we are, today.
If not, do people not process the information first, and do the 'just in time' management?
The effort I put into making decisions is a mix for me.
For major decisions, for example, that involve personal finances or career choices, I take my time to weigh many if not all options.
For minor decisions like where to go for dinner or what to wear, I'm impulsive.
The only time this happens to me is when I'm trying to decide what to order off a menu, or where to order from using UberEats.
When I can't decide where to order food from, I just give up and make a sandwich. If I'm at a restaurant I let the waiter or waitress make a recommendation and go with that.
I listened to it. I don't agree with her that we have to take short cuts to be able to think about other things.
This whole concept of 'decision fatigue' makes absolutely no sense to me, at all. We make decisions all day long, consciously, and subconsciously. To say that 'I can't think the rest of the day if you ask me a few questions about the water you're offering me', makes no sense. It does not take a lot of energy to pick 1 out of the 2 choices.
The part about laying out clothes - my mom did that for us when we were kids to save HER time in the morning since she had to deal with 3 kids to get out the door to school. As an adult, it doesn't 'exhaust' me to think about what to wear that day. Maybe these people are worrying too much about what other people might think, which if you want to save energy thinking, stop worrying about what other people think.
Same with breakfast - how is it 'taxing' to think about what to have for breakfast? Just pick something and eat it. Why is it being thrown out there as some major life decision?
Every day life isn't this difficult.
Now, if someone were trying to plan a funeral, or a wedding - as she talked about in the video, that is far more understandable. There are a lot of decisions to make for that one event, but then I wonder, how do Event Coordinators survive when that's what they do all day long?
Is it that people can't organize their thoughts?
Is it that people worry too much about what others think of their decisions?
Is it that people are too lazy to think about things where no one else will care about their decision?
Is it that people today had a helicopter parent who did everything for them?
I've never heard of this before, and it makes zero sense to me.
Is it not that people are dumb, it's that people don't want to make a decision due to one of those things I listed above, and would rather just go along with what someone else said?
Is this why people want a 'collective' and not 'individualism', because the latter means YOU are the one who makes the decisions for yourself. Some of them will be good, some of them will be bad, but it's all on you.
That's why I started this thread, because this 'just in time' thinking, and this 'I can't handle simple decisions without ruining the rest of my day' blows my mind.
I listened to it. I don't agree with her that we have to take short cuts to be able to think about other things.
This whole concept of 'decision fatigue' makes absolutely no sense to me, at all. We make decisions all day long, consciously, and subconsciously. To say that 'I can't think the rest of the day if you ask me a few questions about the water you're offering me', makes no sense. It does not take a lot of energy to pick 1 out of the 2 choices.
The part about laying out clothes - my mom did that for us when we were kids to save HER time in the morning since she had to deal with 3 kids to get out the door to school. As an adult, it doesn't 'exhaust' me to think about what to wear that day. Maybe these people are worrying too much about what other people might think, which if you want to save energy thinking, stop worrying about what other people think.
Same with breakfast - how is it 'taxing' to think about what to have for breakfast? Just pick something and eat it. Why is it being thrown out there as some major life decision?
Every day life isn't this difficult.
Now, if someone were trying to plan a funeral, or a wedding - as she talked about in the video, that is far more understandable. There are a lot of decisions to make for that one event, but then I wonder, how do Event Coordinators survive when that's what they do all day long?
Is it that people can't organize their thoughts?
Is it that people worry too much about what others think of their decisions?
Is it that people are too lazy to think about things where no one else will care about their decision?
Is it that people today had a helicopter parent who did everything for them?
I've never heard of this before, and it makes zero sense to me.
Is it not that people are dumb, it's that people don't want to make a decision due to one of those things I listed above, and would rather just go along with what someone else said?
Is this why people want a 'collective' and not 'individualism', because the latter means YOU are the one who makes the decisions for yourself. Some of them will be good, some of them will be bad, but it's all on you.
That's why I started this thread, because this 'just in time' thinking, and this 'I can't handle simple decisions without ruining the rest of my day' blows my mind.
The woman from your link is, what us old-timers call it, neurotic. I don't know what the kids nowadays call it.
The only time this happens to me is when I'm trying to decide what to order off a menu, or where to order from using UberEats.
When I can't decide where to order food from, I just give up and make a sandwich. If I'm at a restaurant I let the waiter or waitress make a recommendation and go with that.
So, maybe having too many choices is overwhelming for some. I don't fully understand that.
Using your example about what to decide to eat: The first thing I do is 'delete' everything I know for a fact I will not eat. Example: I don't even bother with the 'seafood' side of the menu. I won't eat it, I don't even need to think about it, because I've tried every type of fish, including the 'you just haven't had it made the way I make it', the 'it doesn't taste like fish at all', and the 'I promise you, even if you don't like fish, you'll like this', as well as the fish I had to eat when I was a kid at the dinner table. It's not that I haven't tried, I made the decision to try, and I was right all along, but I took no short cuts getting there.
I won't eat off the 'vegan' side of the menu or the 'vegetarian' side of the menu, unless I am flying in a plane and there's a meal served, then I'll get the vegetarian because it's actually good, tastes better, and is food I would eat, normally.
So, I eliminate what I won't eat, and from there, I have really cut that menu down, sometimes over half of the menu is 'gone'. From there, I do what another poster said above: I just pick something. I usually pick something I've never had before.
I do think we have an excess of options in many categories. Maybe that's the problem? Maybe it has something to do with, as I said earlier, how people were parented. When we were little kids, yes, the parents made the decisions for us, but as we got older, we were allowed to make the decisions. Again, some will be good, some will be bad...but that's how you learn. Maybe some of these people didn't have that when they were growing up.
I'm still focused on the fact that 'do you want lemon or grapefruit' and 'do you want ice' and 'do you want plain or sparkling' is too much for this person that they can't make decisions later in the day because they are, using her words, 'mentally taxed'.
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"I don't understand. But I don't care, so it works out."
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Very interesting topic.
My husband ran a very hectic, very busy business and was making decisions all day long. At the end of the day, or on weekends, he couldn't make any decisions - he'd just get a deer in the headlights look. For God's sake man, Ranch or Bleu Cheese? Would you like to go on a walk or not?
Not trying to brag, but I'm a decision maker and always have been. Even as a kid, when a group of us kids would get together to play a game, whether it was sandlot baseball or some card game or some board game, I would often want to make or change the rules of the game to the way that *I* thought was most fair and appropriate rather than use someone else's rules that weren't as fair or appropriate (in my opinion).
Making decisions all the time doesn't bother me in the least. I don't advocate changing things if they don't need changing, but if I can think of a better way or an alternative that I think is better, I'm not at all hesitant to speak up. And I'm able to give good reasons WHY I think things should be done the way I think they should be done. I don't say "Let's do it this way because this is what I want." I give good reason WHY it should be done my way.
As for making personal decisions on what to eat, what to wear, or where to go, that's no problem either. I've always been a decision maker. In fact, the worst two years of my life were when I was in the Army and NEVER getting to make a decision on anything. We were always TOLD what to do and would get in trouble if we questioned something. Even if we knew we were being told to do something wrong, we would get in trouble if we questioned the order. Yet there were people in the Army that LOVED being told what to do at all times. That way, they never had to think or decide anything. No disrespect intended for our military personnel. They do a very valuable job and I'm glad they're there, but it wasn't for me even though I advanced rapidly and did well in the 2 years I was in there.
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