First up.... Decision fatigue is one reason that you may well give in when your child asks for one of the chocolate bars or treats lined up
next to the till when you go to pay for your shopping. You have made a bunch of decisions as you’ve travelled through the supermarket, decision fatigue has set in…..
In decision making and psychology literature, decision fatigue refers to the decline in the quality of decisions made by all of us following a lot of decision making.
This has been researched by a number of authors, but primarily look at the comprehensive research of Roy Baumeister (2003) “The Psychology of Irrationality” and then with colleagues in 2005 Decision Fatigue Exhausts Self-Regulatory Resources.
As a real-life example with major impact, judges in court have been shown to make poorer quality decisions, or take easier options later on
in the day than they do earlier on ( see: Extraneous factors in judicial decisions, for example ).
An article at Business Insider suggested that as mentioned previously here, that major figures such as former US President Barack Obama, Steve Jobs, and Mark Zuckerberg have been known to reduce the number of decisions they make each day by simply having one or two outfits that they wear every
day.
Decision fatigue leads to decision avoidance, impulse purchasing, lack of will power, impaired self-regulation and many believe it contributes to a number of psychological issues.
If you keep running mile after mile, you suffer from physical fatigue. You slow down and stumble because your leg muscles get
tired.
If you keep making decision after decision, you suffer from mental fatigue. You stop making decisions or make impulsive and inappropriate decisions.
According to the social psychologist Roy Baumeister, this mental fatigue zaps your will power and decision-making ability. You take short cuts, become angry with
others, make impulsive decisions, and stop thinking about the consequences of your action.
Everyone suffers from decision fatigue. That includes you. Therefore, I have written this with a view to showing you how to reduce or avoid decision fatigue and thus enhance the quality of important decisions and life choices that
you make…..
Read this article for links to all the research papers, related links and all of the science-backed suggestions for avoiding decision fatigue and recovering from decision fatigue:
Secondly....
How to declutter your mind is my second (and related) topic today and not by chance or as a random subject. It is something I have been examining and working on with myself this year as I have sought to develop my own effectiveness in my personal and professional
life.
“It’s as though our brains are configured to make a certain number of decisions per day and once we reach that limit, we can’t make any more, regardless of how important they are.” ― Daniel J. Levitin.
Everything I read on how to have more will power and be more effective shows more studies and evidence on the negative effects decision fatigue and getting bogged down with unwanted thoughts, rumination and a busy, buzzing reactive mindset. Take it from me, you want to declutter your mind. Do you constantly feel your brain’s capacity is full, and it is going to explode soon? Don’t
worry, you are not alone. In the world we live in today, it is very easy to add masses of information to our mind very quickly, thanks to multitude of social networking and information radiating channels.
“The human brain has 100 billion neurons, each neuron connected to 10 thousand other neurons. Sitting on your
shoulders is the most complicated object in the known universe.” – Michio Kaku.
Many of my professional hypnotherapy clients find their minds seemingly cluttered as part of the issue they are seeking help with. A client recently stated that he felt down or upset a lot of the time. “I feel as if I have no control
over the way I feel,” he said. Upon us working together, he learned that his thoughts were largely responsible for his feelings and he was able to gain much more control over his disturbing emotions. He found that, with a bit of effort and application, it became possible to control and alter many of his negative thoughts. An inherent part of that process was decluttering, stopping rumination and overthinking.
In cognitive behavioural hypnotherapy and other related fields, myself and many of my peers give our clients a thought form for practical use and many other thought disputation methodologies to show them how easy it actually is to take control of one’s own thoughts…
This concept is at
least two thousand years old and is often attributed to the philosopher Epictetus, who said “Men [and women] feel disturbed not by things, but by the views they take of them.” Many centuries later, William Shakespeare rephrased this thought in Hamlet when he wrote: “There (is) nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.”
The fact is, we have tremendous control over our emotions and are not helpless stimulus-response creatures who are powerless over our moods. Simply recognising that thinking influences emotions is a very important step on the road leading to a happier and healthier life… As I’ll be explaining later, noting thoughts down on a regular basis is even better…
I have a theory of my own devising, espoused to my students and clients on a regular basis… It is called the candy floss brain theory.
A regular thought is just like a long, thin, fragile stick.
Our
brain is a bit like a candy floss machine – at least in terms of this metaphor. (No pedants start critiquing the works of brains and fun fair machines here please.)
When a thought is running rampage and left inside the brain, the brain being the fantastical and wondrous thing it is, can make the thought seem
exponentially more than it actually is. Like the stick being turned into a big, pink, fluffy gooey thing when left inside the candy-floss machine.
I recall a client telling me about his depression. I asked him how he did it. He explained the process and I repeated it back to him “So in order for me to do your depression
if you stepped off the planet, I’d have to do this, this and this, right?”
“No Adam, it is more than that.”
“Ok, so explain it to me again then, I may have missed something.”
To which the client then repeated and explained the way he did his depression. Giving a detailed account of it.
I replied again ” So for me to do your depression, I’d have to do this, this and this?”
“No Adam, it is much more than that.”
This could have gone on and on. It is not more than that.
It is only more than that when it is left inside the head rattling around, ruminating, being catastrophised about and made all the more fantastical by the brain, being turned into candy floss. I am not saying the unpleasantness is not real and experienced as unpleasant. I am saying that when thoughts are written down, and
disputed in a structured manner, we see them for what they really are. We take the stick out of the candy floss machine and see it for what it really is.
We often realise how silly they are and the thoughts become vulnerable. Very much more open to change and updating. Decluttering can begin in a number of ways,
learning how to get ‘stuff’ out of your head is what this article is all about.
A decluttered and organised home and office space allows you to thrive. The environments you spend time in play a huge role in how healthy you are, how productive, how effective, and how successful. The things we have around us really do
have a big impact upon our lives. Clutter – both in our physical and mental space – can block us from thriving and achieving our goals and gaining abundance. It can drain our energy and weigh us down. Go and declutter the spaces you spend most time in as a good precursor and framework for decluttering your mind.
How do
you declutter your mind? – It is not a difficult task if we all give it a little thought. Simplifying should not be made complex because that is what most of us do. Read this article filled with science-based tools and techniques you can use regularly to cleanse and declutter your mind.
