Taking the unimportant decisions in life.
2026 Day 182. #PersonalDays.
One of the most annoying things that I have to decide are between choices that really have no long term consequences. I am not gaining or losing anything with either decision. It could be as simple as what I am wearing today while I stay at home or if I should have a burger or a wrap.
These unimportant decisions that force you to think can be troublesome. From my reading of Thinking, Fast & Slow, I have learned of the two systems that operate from within my brain.
System 1 reacts in the moment. It does not matter the consequence of the decision, S1 will give you an answer immediately. These answers are affected by your current state of mind, emotional state, internal biases, narrow view of the situation, and short term thinking.
While this sounds like S1 makes bad decisions, it helps by reacting quickly, using intuition and previous experience to navigate decisions, and taking the brunt of the cognitive load.
System 2 handles the logical decisions which require a lot of calculations, balancing the pros and cons, and long term thinking. It’s lazy and does not like to take charge, so it must be forced to be stimulated.
Now that you know the base theory, you might have understood what I am going to be talking about.
Making inconsequential decisions weigh on your mind means activating S2 and utilising some brain power. It is this cognitive load that will tire you out quickly.
You might feel like you need to take a break, maybe go for a walk, or take a quick nap because you utilised much of your brain power doing something.
But these decisions were very inconsequential. It did not affect your life in the long term and its short term effects are not very drastic or barely existent.
If you look back at the day, you may realise that all the busy work you had done amounted to very little. The “productive” day suddenly does not seem a good day to recount. It might lead to a feeling that you have accomplished very little and rightly so — all of your effort went towards things that were not important enough to stay in your memory.
Decision fatigue is real and should be mitigated. Quickly wearing out your S2 will lead to a tired brain that moves on to making irrational decisions when moving to more important questions.
Suppose you are going out to meet your friends. You are weighing and rationalising an answer these questions
- what you should wear?
- should you drive or take a taxi?
- should you arrive a little late because everyone always arrives late?
- should you get something on the way for the party?
- how late will this thing run?
- will you have to skip your early morning yoga?
And similar thoughts. When you start weighing so many option you will tire yourself out. Towards the end you might do something different to what you had initially planned because now you are tired and not making rational decisions. So all the time you spent figuring things out and weighing your options goes to waste, and since it had tired you out you might not make good decisions soon.
Your brain is an excellent machine but it is easily manipulated and quickly tired. Minimise the consequence of each decision. Live your life a little freely to make the most of the moment and reserve complex thinking and analysis for S2.
Often people will rely on S1 when S2 was needed and vice versa. This is the inefficiency that can lead to irrational decisions, biased solutions, unintended consequences, and long term dissatisfaction.
Pay attention to the things that matter more. At first you must do this consciously. To activate your S2 a slightly complex math problem (47 x 13) can help kickstart it.
Make better decisions, smarter and quicker. Tire your brain out as little as possible with everyday tasks so you can focus on what actually matters.
See you tomo