Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Minutiae & Decision Fatigue

There's so much stuff in our lives. Not only our material possessions, obviously, but also the tasks that go with caring for them.

Putting things away. Fetching things out. Cleaning things. Finding places for things to be stored. Having things repaired or serviced so they don't break down. Paying bills. Buying food. Preparing food. Entertaining ourselves.

Break these activities down into single tasks and you have dozens of tasks we must identify, prioritize, and do. Every single day. Unless we are outstandingly disciplined, not to say anal retentive, this requires us to make decisions and plans, then adjust them continually in the light of new information (ie interruptions and competing requests from others) much of which is irrelevant from our point if view.

At the end of 'one of those days' we may not have achieved much but our brains have been making hundreds of time calculations, risk/benefit assessments, and process evaluations. It's no wonder we feel tired even even when we despair: 'But I hardly got anything done.' We're suffering from decision fatigue in spite of those decisions only being minor ones.

No wonder most of us crave some simplicity.

This is post 29 of 43 posts.
Sent from my iPhone

No comments: