Decision Fatigue - What happens when I don’t make up my mind for 3 days
Every single day, from the moment I wake, until I shut my eyes after scheduling the next day’s alarms at 10-minute intervals, all I do is make decisions. Get up with the first alarm and do amazing makeup and eat breakfast, sleep longer and potentially run out of time for brows. Will I get the train or Lyft to work? Should I schedule it to get a better price or wait until I’m ready to leave? Should I shuffle some meetings around to make a 1 hour slot to “do actual work” on the calendar rather than 2 30-minute slots which will ultimately get eaten into by other meetings?
I can’t complain about having to make decisions at work, it’s my job. But I’ll tell you what, I’m making work-related decisions from 7:30am to 10:30pm. No exaggeration, it’s just a fact. It’s mostly my choice, but that’s my life really.
Lately it’s felt like all I do all damn day is make decisions for myself and other people.
So when I was given 5 days off, I decided to stop deciding, or at least keep decisions to bare minimum. I’m realising this right now at the end of the 5th day. It certainly was not planned. My mind gave up and kept my decisions to an absolute minimum for 3 days solid.
The 40*C+ weather that was forecast for LA helped me realise I couldn’t go anywhere even if I wanted to.
The first day of the break was 4th of July and we had plans - not to celebrate America, but my good friend’s birthday. Probably my best friend here in LA. (Hi Harriet!) The day started with waking up with a full-blown migraine. Great. This happens to me every so often, but this day I was well-slept and hydrated, heading into a long-long weekend, so why did I get a migraine? Probably accumulated stress and my body finally saying “ahhh”.
So this was a tell that I should switch the hell off and roll with it. We had a great day but kept it as laid-back as possible decision-wise. I threw on a dress I’d already worn that week to save outfit anxiety, didn’t bother with eyeshadow and I tried to relax.
I kept conversation topics light, didn’t drink and didn’t swim. I avoided anything that would prolong my migraine and really focused on just enjoying the company around me and keeping out of the sun.
Finally, my headache exited my skull around 10 hours later. I was beginning to feel the effects of not deciding for a while. I felt ok.
Day 2 of the break and I was focused on something which I can’t discuss here yet, but it continued to distract me (on my phone) and I also had some work distractions because the entire world wasn’t on a public holiday. I tried to keep my work involvement to a minimum, and between that and snacking instead of preparing proper meals, I tried to watch TV.
Amazon video, Hulu or Netflix? Which show? Which movie? I couldn’t decide. So I went into a YouTube vortex, streaming the most irrelevant and random videos from my phone to the TV and letting the algorithm decide what I would watch next. It ranged from tiny-house apartment tours, ted-talks about posture, tea-spilling episodes about the failed Tanacon, makeup tutorials (which I largely got bored with) and travel vlogs.
It was nice not deciding what to watch. I discovered a few new channels and personalities who I now follow, and some I became sick of and unsubscribed from.
Nearly 4 days had passed. I repeated this couch-snacking, distracted screen-staring behaviour for 3 days. Alex was working each day and before or after he worked, I let him decide what we watched most of the time.
Today we went out for the morning and it was good, but involved decisions. So I became stressed again. I felt ok at the time, but now I’m home and I went back on certain apps, the internet is making me question future decisions. Decisions I don’t want to have to make, but am being forced to. More on that later, and hopefully it has a happy outcome. I don’t want to say ending. Maybe it’ll be a beginning. Throughout this entire time I was texting my Mum. Thank fuck, because I really needed to vent about some things.
I don’t know what the main point of this post is, but I wanted to express how I’ve been feeling, for my own reference and say that if you’ve felt the same it’s normal. Just because you have days off or a long weekend, doesn’t mean you have to do anything with your time. Sometimes doing nothing is what your body needs.
Ultimately I don’t think social media helps when you’re feeling this way, because it makes you think you should be doing something other than what you decided to do. It makes you feel like you have to be constantly brunching, disneylanding and shopping. It makes you question your own intuitions and think that a collective of keyboard-warrior strangers know best.
I should have put my phone in another room for a day. I’m not that strong.
I even tried to schedule myself to do things on my calendar, which is something I usually thank myself later for, but every alert that went off was ignored. I knew deep inside that I didn’t have the energy to be voluntarily productive. Who was going to make me?
Now it’s nearing the end of 5 days “off work” and what did I achieve?
- I kept the apartment tidy (do I get a medal?)
- I avoided two days above 42*C by simply staying inside
- I did adult colouring in, for fuck’s sake. To relax. Not sure if it worked.
- I watched far too much TV that I can’t even recall
- I gave my skin a break from makeup for 3 days and did a sheet mask (Instagram stories achievement unlocked!)
- I dyed my hair, painted my nails and generally it feels like I just took self-care Saturdays to the extreme
- I was reminded of how much I love where we live. And that’s why I felt OK being inside for so long by myself.
Is there a moral to this story? It might have to be a follow-up post, because honestly I am writing this sitting on my bed, on top of clean clothes that need to be put away, and I’ve been crying a little.
I’m not embarrassed to tell people tomorrow I did “literally nothing” on the break. I’m just plain tired still.
How could the last 5 days have been exhausting when I did almost nothing?
I was recovering from decision fatigue.
I’m still not cured yet.