Steve Jobs allegedly wears the same outfit, day in and day out. The reason behind this is because, according to interviews, Steve desires to reserve his 'decision-making-capacities' for other tasks of higher priority in the day. Based on this logic, by pondering over what to wear in the morning, Steve is burning a fuel of some accumulation of decision making fuel. For one source on this you can click here to read about it. The idea is that willpower is a finite psychological resource.

I have heard of this concept from time to time in other resources as well. The general information asserted in several of these sources seems to highlight to "save your decision making muscles for important things only." As if, by constantly being indecisive or unsure of what to have for breakfast, what to wear, how to style your hair, or which way to drive to an event has some kind of huge, detrimental 'cost' to ones brain power. I don't have any idea where people are getting this information from, apart from it appearing to be a heavy stream of thought or otherwise their life experience.

The logic continues based on that, by the end of ones day, one will be very fatigued, tired and out of energy and unable to be capable of making correct minded decisions.

Now, the contrary to all of this rubbish (in my own opinion) is that decision making is what creates a flow of energy. See Where Does Apathy Fit into the Emotional Guidance Scale?

What seems to be happening in the above examples of Steve Job is that he is deciding, ahead of time, to have decisions already built in and in place for the day, so he automatically is experiences that thrill of energy ahead of time. And someone like Steve Jobs I can imagine would be so involved in life circumstances where he would be making decisions non-stop all day, every day.

But perhaps I am wrong? Perhaps there is some kind of limited reserve of decision making ability in a single day, and the only way to reset the fuel barometer would be to go to sleep?

What do you think? My opinion is that decision making fatigue is a myth.....perhaps over-analysis fatigue would be a more actual description?

asked 03 Aug '18, 19:56

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Nikulas
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edited 04 Aug '18, 02:53

Interesting, it is known that, for example, Mark Zuckerberg wears same clothes every day, too. Who'd guess the key to success would be so simple hehe

(05 Aug '18, 13:09) Marin
2

After a few minutes of thinking, my two cents: I think that decisions per se don't cause fatigue. Real causes for fatigue should be the things which precede decisions and cause burden after decisions - stress, all kinds of worry, thinking, analyzing...Your concept of over-analysis fatigue may be a more acceptable term, indeed.

(05 Aug '18, 13:31) Marin
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Even in the case of having that same outfit to wear every single day, the decision is still being made each morning to continue that trend. Just as easily as you could get out of the shower and put that same outfit on for the six-hundredth time, you could look at it and decide to wear something else instead. So it's still a decision, there's still a choice there. It's just that it probably feels better to have this in place, gives a good sense of having one thing checked off of the to-do list from the get go when there are many more to be tackled, and so this decision persists.

I like how you look at it. Decisions are like directing our flow of energy. We're always making them, we're always moving forward, energy is always flowing. Some feel like big decisions, some massive, some insignificant, but we can't really know how they'll ultimately impact the flow of energy. Making one decision that feels tiny like nothing to us at the time could change the entire course of one's life. If there was such a reservoir of decision making energy, we wouldn't know which choices would drain it faster... and even if it was drained, we wouldn't stop having decisions to make anyways! So I agree with you that there isn't such a thing. But hey, maybe someone else feels good about limiting how many choices they perceive as big per day, so it makes them feel good to believe it.

Over-analysis fatigue sounds right to me, too. And I think that comes when we're too attached to the decision and its outcome. We feel bad about making the wrong choice and what outcome it could lead to, and if we'll miss out on the better outcome, and so on and on, until this one decision has made us feel drained and awful. And I guess that's because we don't trust that the universe will lead us to the best outcome regardless, and we end up out of sync with our higher self, blocking up that flow we are meant to freely direct with our endless buffet of choices, and then you have the crummy feelings and the likelihood of taking uninspired action. Or we make the decision to do nothing, which is still a choice, and then another comes, and another, and so on.

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answered 04 Aug '18, 16:09

hybridmoonlight's gravatar image

hybridmoonlight
1819

This is great to get your perspective. It confirms much of what feels right for me, but I am always truly ready for someone else to come and shatter my beliefs or expand on them. I have been interested in this entire concept of decisions=life for a very long time and still am. Over-analysis, weighing up too many choices and then having pressure to pick the 'right one' I suppose is one of cultures heaviest and saddest conditionings. The child must say the right answer or they are punished...

(04 Aug '18, 19:06) Nikulas

...You must pick the right job or you are signing up for misery. You must pick the right friends or you will be led to a hell-trodden path. I enjoy exercising my freedom and my given right to sometimes deliberately pick the wrong choice just so I can feel the heat of the fire that may start. And yes, every choice will eventually steer you to the correct destination anyways, so really the only wrong choice is a personal stalemate. Thanks for the answer

(04 Aug '18, 19:09) Nikulas

If you come from a family in which you were punished for not being good enough or doing something right, it adds a lot more false need to do the right thing, and fear of taking action at all sometimes. But we learn from what we see as mistakes and grow from it.

That's what I love about this place, seeing what contrasting perspectives there are and learning more from them and about your own views when you add them in. Always nice talking!

(04 Aug '18, 22:14) hybridmoonlight
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