Do you suffer from decision fatigue?

K

kelstarrising

Kelly | GTD expert
I'm sure there's some nefarious reason you posted this in the mid-afternoon, now.

But seriously, this is interesting stuff. I'd be really interested to see some research into deferring desire, the way Pomodoro does -- if you suffer an internal distraction (like "I want to eat some ice cream") then you just write it down, but don't actually act on it. I have a guess how that might turn out, but it's hard to beat good quality research.

Cheers,
Roger
 
Some people suggest starting your day with a few important tasks, THEN handle new input (that is, decide on next actions) which doesn't require as much energy and focus. Same with weekly review -- maybe do it mid to late afternoon late in the week.

However, given that what we really do at these two events is make decisions, maybe this should take place at the start of the day, or maybe just after lunch.
 
Tom.9;91251 said:
But which conclusions derive from the article for the GTD-users?
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First of all do gtd, it helps to conserve mental energy a lot ! :)
group actions by energy(mental)
don't start your day by doing pointless browsing, checking email, processing inbox and low energy actions because if you do that you won't have enough mental energy to get important high energy (mental) stuff done like prioritizing and planning.

Also eat lots of natural sugar/glucose, preferably in the form of fruit like bananas (but make sure they are ripe and have brown spots) and dates but any fruit would work. They used some processed glucose drinks and artificial sweets in research which is just stupid. You can blend dates with water and get much better results with no side effects.
It's essential to also avoid high fat because you won't be able to process all the glucose efficiently if you get more than 10% of total calories from fat, so no added fats, ie oils and such

You can check Douglas Graham 80/10/10 diet book or search youtube(Douglas Graham) for more info (like this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gxlDcOF0Q0 and etc).

Also the book "your brain at work" by David Rock covers all this (except diet of course) and more in more detail... There is alot more to this topic, emotions, social issues and so on
 
If a morning and afternoon snack are beneficial, why wouldn't you just have two?
Eg breakfast 6:30, morning snack 8:30 and 10:30, lunch 12:30, afternoon tea at 2:30 and 4:30, dinner 6:30. That way you'd have some food every 2 hours and have a more sustained energy level.
 
Suelin23;91281 said:
If a morning and afternoon snack are beneficial, why wouldn't you just have two?
Eg breakfast 6:30, morning snack 8:30 and 10:30, lunch 12:30, afternoon tea at 2:30 and 4:30, dinner 6:30. That way you'd have some food every 2 hours and have a more sustained energy level.
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From my personal experience it's the overall amount of calories/glucose that matters the most. You just don't want to run into a problem of not having enough fuel. When you're low on glucose the brain would still function of course, but it will use different regions more to conserve energy(not good for decision making but good for doing things on auto-pilot, even though you can still make decions - it would just to take a lot more effort and time).

"If a morning and afternoon snack are beneficial, why wouldn't you just have two?"

It really depends on if you can take those snacks every 2 hours. I personally can't most of the time, but again it doesn't matter much because I can just make a 1000 calorie blended meal from fruit. It takes like 5 mins to make and 20 minutes to drink and saves a lot of time ( no cooking, cleaning takes less than a minute and so on ), not to mention it's the easiest thing to digest, so I don't waste energy on digestion as much
 
Most of my work is at a computer, apart from meetings which are usually less than 2hours anyway, so I have a lot of opportunity to eat often. Actually I usually try and take a couple of breaks 1 to relieve boredom, 2 because its not good to be so sedentary and I need to move more.

At the moment my current problem is overeating of bad calories, like chocolate and junk food, leading me to be tired and sluggish and have problems thinking because of poor digestion. I have bought Douglas Graham's book and need to start changing my habits. I don't have the equipment to do a smoothie at work but could easily have a piece of fruit for each break.
 
supergtdman;91268 said:
Also the book "your brain at work" by David Rock covers all this (except diet of course) and more in more detail... There is alot more to this topic, emotions, social issues and so on
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Wow, that's a really good book! I've just bought it on Kindle, and am engrossed already. Supplements GTD really well, and also helps explain why it works
 
Suelin23;91281 said:
If a morning and afternoon snack are beneficial, why wouldn't you just have two?
Eg breakfast 6:30, morning snack 8:30 and 10:30, lunch 12:30, afternoon tea at 2:30 and 4:30, dinner 6:30. That way you'd have some food every 2 hours and have a more sustained energy level.
Click to expand...

I do this all the time, I'm a big fan of sustained energy throughout the day!
 
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