Is Decision Fatigue Costing You Money?

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In one study of over 1,100 parole hearings over a year, where about a third of the parole applications were granted, it was found that:

• Prisoners who appeared early in the morning received parole about 70 percent of the time; while,
• Those who appeared late in the day were paroled less than 10 percent of the time.

And why did this happen.  It had nothing to do with the applicant’s themselves.  It was all largely due to what researchers called decision fatigue.

They theory behind this is, just like your physical body gets fatigued after a period of exercise, so does your mind after a period of making decisions.

And the more decisions you make in a day, the more mental decision making energy you use.  And the harder it becomes for your brain to make decisions.

So just like when you are physically tired, your brain starts to take shortcuts.

One shortcut is to go into energy saver mode and do nothing.  In other words stay with the status quo.

The other shortcut is to become reckless and act impulsively instead of expending the energy to first think through the consequences.

So how does decision fatigue cost you money?

If you are trying to get a potential customer to sign an order; your boss to give you a pay rise or a promotion, and you are doing this in the afternoon.  Chances are that the other person is suffering from decision fatigue and will stay with the status quo and say no.  You have just cost yourself money.

What if you are in the car dealership, or a shopping mall in the afternoon and you are offered an upgrade.  Rust proofing for the car, the jewelry to match the new dress, chances are that you will say yes.  Once again costing yourself money.

So what do you do about this?

Firstly, make all your big decisions in the morning before decision fatigue sets in.  Don’t sign that contract to buy a new house, a new car, a new whatever in the afternoon.  And if you want that customer or your boss to say yes, see them in the morning so that you get them before their decision fatigue sets in.

Secondly, you can start to reduce your own decision fatigue by reducing the number of decisions you make.  Stop wasting your decision making energy on unimportant things and save it for the important things.  Be like Barack Obama and reduce your clothing choices.

Thirdly, for the less important things, just take the simpler option.  And if you are trying to convince someone to do something, or to buy something, make sure your offer is the simplest one.  Don’t give them a series of complicated options.  They will just say no.

Now if you want more out of the box thinking on improving the health of your wealth, why not join my meetup group and get notice of my upcoming live events.

Do you and your family a favour and start taking steps so you can improve the health of Your Wealth and get off the treadmill of working till you drop.

Wayne Wanders

The Wealth Navigator

wayne@thewealthnavigator.com.au

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