Why I Avoid Decision-Making on Weekends and Why You Should Too

Welcome to Lights & Lessons: Wisdom for Work! Twice a month, I'll be sharing both the highlights (lights) and challenges (lessons) of work, along with valuable insights that can apply to whatever "work" means to you. I'll also recommend a couple of reads to explore in the future. If you find this issue valuable, please consider sharing it!

For those of you who may not know, I was a young, single mom in my early years of working in the corporate world, even taking on leadership roles in my early 20s. Like any caring parent, I aimed to introduce my son to a variety of delicious foods to ensure his palate was ready for the diverse world he would explore. However, to my surprise, during his elementary school years, I didn't need to coax him into eating his veggies, but he developed a preference for the same meals over and over again (my turkey meatloaf, lasagna, etc.).

One Saturday morning, while discussing my struggles in expanding my son's culinary horizons with my mom, she shared a piece of wisdom, saying, "My grandson is eating his food groups; that means less stress on your brain to make menu decisions. Stick with the same 5-7 meals and repeat. Let it go."

Little did my mom know that nearly two decades ago, she introduced me to a concept that I would delve into further as I juggled the roles of a working mom, a leader, and pursued graduate and doctoral degrees. This concept is known as decision fatigue.

According to experts, decision fatigue is a psychological phenomenon that occurs when a person's ability to make effective decisions deteriorates after a long series of decision-making. As individuals make choices throughout the day, their mental and emotional resources become drained, leading to decreased self-control, impulsive decisions, and lower-quality choices. This concept is especially relevant for leaders who frequently make high-stakes decisions.

Here are some key points about decision fatigue and its effects from experts at The Decision Lab:

Limited Mental Energy: Think of decision fatigue like when you're physically tired. Just as your body gets tired, your brain can get exhausted from making lots of decisions. When you make complicated or emotional choices at work or home, it uses up your thinking power.

Impaired Self-Control: Decision fatigue can make you choose things without thinking too much. When you're tired from making many decisions, you might pick the easiest option, even if it's not the best one.

Reduced Willpower: Decision fatigue can make it hard to resist doing things you know you shouldn't, or sticking to your plans.

Poor Decision Quality: As you make more decisions throughout the day, the quality of those choices can decline. This can be a significant issue for leaders and, well, anyone who needs to make wise decisions. Additionally, this decline in decision quality can lead to unintentional biases in workplace settings, as the choices made are not as well thought out.

Understanding decision fatigue is critical for well-being and avoiding burnout along with a host of other benefits.? This is why my mom's advice was an enlightening lesson to me, one that led me to limit decisions in creating a diverse menu for my son when he wasn't particularly adventurous, and why I now, as a leader engaged in various activities both inside and outside of work, focus on reducing decision-making during the weekends as my non-perfect way to cope.

However, this doesn't mean spending every weekend on the couch, indulging in ice cream and Netflix (though, if that's your choice, that's perfectly fine). It means adopting several routines to limit decisions once the workweek ends on Friday.

Here are some of the strategies I use:

1. Friday Routine: Fridays are for take-out or leftovers. When my husband asks what I want, I tell him "your choice" unless it's a planned date night.
2. Weekly Planning: During the week, I jot down key things I want to do or complete outside of work on the weekends. I try to tackle the major things during the week at night if I can to save my weekends. My husband and I share a Google Calendar to keep everything organized.
3. Simplified Wardrobe:? I often wear colors from the same palette for work and leisure, building off a foundation of my favorite color, black. This makes dressing easier, even when I have weekend plans or travel.
4. Maintaining a Margin:? I'm just starting to incorporate this practice. I try not to overschedule my weekends by leaving some weekends open for rest and spontaneity. This can be challenging, as it often means saying no to some invitations.

I've come to accept that my workweek won't neatly wrap up with a bow, but I now jot down things I need to attend to over the weekend to clear my mind and pick them up again on Monday.

These are just some of the strategies I use to minimize weekend decision-making, and while it's a work in progress, these practices have significantly improved my well-being in recent years.

If you'd like to explore the concept of decision fatigue further, here is an article that may be helpful.?

So, what do you think? Are you ready to join me in the "no decisions on the weekends" challenge? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments—I'd love to hear from you! Thanks for reading and please share too!