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Decision-Making
Six Tips to Reduce COVID Decision Fatigue
The exhaustion is real. Here are some solutions.
Posted September 3, 2020 Reviewed by Ekua Hagan
As each state, county, town, employer, small business owner, school district, family, and individual plots a course for the fall, we are inundated with decisions to make. There are big decisions, like whether to move your family out of the city, whether to send your kids back to school, and whether to keep your job. And there are little decisions, like whether to stop to use the bathroom at the highway rest stop or get off the highway to hit a lesser-trafficked gas station. There are decisions we can anticipate and make in advance, like whether or not to hug when we see our friends. And there are unexpected decisions that sneak up on us, like whether or not to step off the trail into the brush when a non-masked hiker comes around the corner.
With the school year starting, decision-making has ramped up to new levels. The stakes are high, confidence is low, emotions are hot, and answers are nonexistent. The result is we are making complex decisions on a daily basis under very challenging conditions, and our decision-making tools are not at their best. Our rational minds are clouded by emotion, and our intuition is clouded by fear. Our central nervous system is giving us perpetual danger cues, and our internal analyzer is confused by incomplete, absent, and conflicting data.
Often the desired outcomes that would ideally guide the decision-making process seem at odds with each other. For example, what do you do when your desire to protect your children’s physical health (say, by reducing their exposure and saying no to seeing friends) comes into conflict with your desire to support their mental health (by respecting their need for social contact and saying yes to seeing friends)? Or, when a deep desire to see your family bumps up against a desire to protect public health, because your family, while well isolated, lives in an orange zone?
You want to protect your health, your family’s health, and public health, without sacrificing everyone’s mental health. You want to protect your job and your income without putting anyone at risk. You want to be helpful to your friends, yet you want to be protective of everyone’s wellness. Our goals are often contradictory, and the waters are murky. And frankly, there is no end in sight.
The result? COVID decision fatigue. Our brains are tired from the effort. Our hearts are tired from the emotional strain. And our bodies are tired from carrying the worry. If you are feeling this way, you are not alone! This is the latest communal pandemic emotional experience. We have gone through communal anxiety, determination, grief, loneliness, numbness, and a fresh round of return-to-school inspired anxiety.
These communal experiences can’t be predicted, because pandemic life is new for all of us. We are stumbling through it together, uncovering the universal emotions as we go. While we can’t be forewarned about the hurdles ahead, we can take comfort in looking around and noticing that the stress, burnout, and fatigue we are feeling about decision-making is normal in these abnormal times. But that doesn’t mean we can’t take some steps to help reduce the decision fatigue. Here are some tips to lighten the cognitive and emotional load.
1. Avoid decision comparison.
Remember that not everyone will make the same decisions, even when presented with the same situation, so try not to evaluate your own path based on anyone else’s choices. Questioning your decisions by comparing them to others’ only increases the fatigue. Other peoples’ risk factors and risk tolerance may be higher or lower than yours, their primary needs may be different from yours, and the factors you are weighing may be weighted very differently for them. Don’t evaluate your own decisions based on the choices of the people around you. And, as hard as it is, sometimes, try not to use up your decision-making energy by thinking through and evaluating other people’s choices.
2. Give yourself permission to be inconsistent.
Not only will your decisions vary from others’, sometimes your decisions will even vary from your own. One day you may feel comfortable having a visit with your brother from out of state who you haven’t seen in six months. Two weeks later you might be anxious about the return to school, and you’ll find yourself saying no to a socially distant walk with a neighbor. That’s ok! You get to be inconsistent to stay current with yourself, your needs, and your feelings.
3. Respect the edge of your own comfort zone.
Reduce your decision fatigue by having a personal policy that you won’t try to push the edges of your comfort zone or talk yourself into something that doesn’t feel right. This will cut down the amount of internal debate you make yourself endure. When in doubt, simply lean into the more cautious decision. For example, if you aren’t sure whether you should wear masks while you walk with your friend on an outdoor path, then wear masks! Decision made. If you aren’t sure whether to have friends over to the house for dinner, opt for a side-by-side picnic, instead. Not sure you should go to the grocery store because you’re not feeling 100% healthy? Just call a friend and ask for help with a grocery run. Not only will you save yourself from many a fatiguing decision-making process, but you will also reduce your post-decision regret, guilt, and anxiety, leaving you lighter and more resilient for the next round of decisions.
4. The more conservative voice always wins.
When navigating decisions with friends and family, decide that the most conservative decision-maker always wins. Just like leaning towards your own conservative voice saves you a lot of internal debates, leaning towards your conservative co-decision makers can be a time and energy saver, too. There’s certainly a benefit to talking through differing thoughts and concerns on the path to a joint decision, but if the endpoint of a conversation is that people simply have different comfort zones, avoid the angst-ridden debate and honor the conservative voice. Base these discussions on open, honest, communication about the relevant factors. Wondering if you should send your kiddo for that playdate even though your husband recently had dinner with a friend from out of town? Talk it over with the other parent, sharing all the relevant factors, and honor the more conservative voice. Set a precedent of full disclosure, easy "no"s, and zero judgment.
5. Fill in unknowns when you can.
The daily decisions we are all facing can be excruciatingly painful, with high emotional and physical stakes. Making them in a swamp of unknowns can be downright impossible. So, fill in the unknowns with answers whenever possible. Trying to decide whether to get your kiddo tested because of cold symptoms? Talk it through with your doctor, and ask the school nurse about the school’s policies. Trying to decide whether to stay in a hotel overnight? Call and ask them to describe their COVID safety protocols. Having more information makes decision making easier, and easier decision making means less decision fatigue. Take the guesswork out whenever you can.
6. Allow protocols to do the heavy lifting!
Finally, you can reduce the number of challenging decisions you need to make, and the exhaustion of making them, by trusting the protocols and guidelines that are in place to inform you. Experts have already made a lot of decisions for us, based on empirical data and best practices for public health. By following their recommendations we not only do our part in the cooperative process of stopping the pandemic, but we also give ourselves a break from the exhausting work of decision making. By making the one decision to trust the protocols and guidelines, you can reduce the number of decisions you will actually have to make, exponentially.
