Decisions decisions…

After a long day of school or work, many people, like myself, like to unwind by watching some TV, listening to music, or consuming any other form of media. A common problem, however, is actually choosing what to watch. I’ve spent countless hours scrolling through Netflix looking for something to put on. On several occasions, I’ve even spent so much time looking for something that I no longer have time to actually watch something. This idea, of struggling to make choices due to a large amount of options, is called decision fatigue. It is something that I have struggled with for most of my life. Yet recently, I’ve taken some steps to fight against it, and I hope that these steps can help anyone who struggles with it as well.

It’s no wonder that decision fatigue is so common in today’s world. Firstly, we make a lot of decisions. Research estimates we make about 35,000 per day. These decisions range from life-altering choices like “what career path should I take?” and “who should I be friends with?” to small choices like “what should I watch?” and “what should I eat for breakfast?” No matter their sizes, these decisions add up over the course of the day and drain the energy of those who have to make them.

Second, many choices we make have a multitude of options. Not every decision is a simple binary choice; many have tens, hundreds, if not thousands of possible choices. To return to the example before, Netflix has over 36,000 hours of content spanning across around 6,600 separate shows and movies. When you sit down to watch Netflix, whether you realize it or not, you are choosing between 6600 possible things to watch. When your goal is to unwind by watching something, having so many possible options is not fun.

Finally, there is a growing pressure to make the “correct” decision all of the time. Of course, those aforementioned life-altering decisions are ones which deserve contemplation and mental energy. But small decisions seem to take up disproportionately large amounts of thought. With the little time everyone has for everything, it's easy to want to make the right decision all of the time. Something as inconsequential as deciding what to watch becomes an arduous search for the “perfect” show. With the thousands of decisions one makes daily, the constant thinking of what the best course of action to take is mentally taxing.

After realizing how much I was weighed down by decision fatigue, I had to ask myself, “how do I fix this?” (which, funnily enough, is another decision). The first thing I did, which I hope can work for others , was to simplify my life and limit my choices. For example, I limit the size of my wardrobe to reduce the amount of decisions I need to make in the morning on what to wear. As many decisions grow exponentially in size with the more options you have, small simplifications here and there can drastically reduce my stress. Secondly, I embrace randomness. Sometimes when there are many decisions in front of me, I let fate make them for me. Despite paying for Spotify Premium, I try to avoid constantly skipping songs, instead letting the randomized shuffle choose what I listen to. The removal of these small decisions adds up and greatly reduces my decision fatigue. Lastly, I pay attention to how important the decisions I make are. Before I choose anything, I ask myself how important the choice is. For any of those very important life decisions, I allow myself to take time and effort in making a decision. But for all of the tiny things that I have needlessly stressed about in the past, I try to avoid exerting myself while making those choices. For watching Netflix, this has had the added benefit of allowing me to discover favorites of mine that I may not have found while wasting my time searching for the perfect show.

I am by no means cured of my decision fatigue. I still spend a little longer on the Netflix homepage than I should, but by building better habits and simplifying my choices, I have recently felt a lot less stressed and weighed down by the thousands of daily decisions I make. To anyone who also suffers from decision fatigue, perhaps implementing these practices in your life may reduce your stress in the same way it has for me. But that's a decision you’ll have to make.