The One You Feed - Mini Episode: Decision Fatigue and the Power of Routines

Episode Date: January 24, 2015

Routines don't drain us, they strengthen us when used correctly. Deciding what to do all the time wears us out and saps out strength.  Some of our most popular interviews that you might also enjoy:Kino MacGregorStrand of OaksMike Scott of the WaterboysTodd Henry- author of Die EmptyRandy Scott HydeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really Know Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor, what's in the museum of failure, and does your dog truly love you? We have the answer. Go to reallyknowreally.com

and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. The Really Know Really podcast. Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everybody, it's Eric from the one you Feed with another mini episode. And this week I want to talk about the benefits of having a routine. A lot of us have a negative connotation of routine. I think we sometimes confuse it with authority or with boredom or monotony or living a lifeless existence. But really it's not any of those things if it's a

routine of our choosing. And the main reason that a routine is so powerful is that it allows us to spend our energy not so much on deciding what we're going to do, but on actually doing things. So there was a pretty popular article in the New York Times a while ago that talked about the idea of decision fatigue. And it was really around the idea that every time we make a decision, it takes something from us. And, I'm not sure when it will air, but he talked about a very similar idea, the idea of a cognitive budget. We've got so much ability to make decisions and think things through. And then when that goes away, we start to really slide into making bad decisions, we pick the easiest path, we fall into old habits. So the benefit, one of the big benefits of routine is that those are a bunch of decisions I don't have to make. So for example, if I don't know what time I'm going to get out of bed, then I might make a whole bunch of decisions before I even get started. Should I get

out of bed right now? No, not right now. When should I get out of bed? I don't know. Should I get out of bed now? No, not right now. When should I get out of bed? Right? And this just goes on. And that's just a draining thing. You know, if I want to develop an exercise habit, if I don't know what days I work out, then every day I'm thinking, should I work out today? Am I going to work out today? Oh, if I work out, what am I going to do? Am I going to do weight training? Am I going to do running? So again, these are all these decisions that are draining that cognitive budget. It's exhausting to keep having to make decisions over and over. Deciding what to do and when wears us out. And if for a lot of the folks who listen to the show, there's an element of depression. And one of the key indicators of or key symptoms of depression is this inability to make decisions. So if I am battling

with that and I don't have routines, then I very quickly become overwhelmed and it's easy to not do a whole lot. Routine is shown to pretty consistently help with confidence, promoting stability in our lives. It's the same reason that things becoming a habit is so valuable because we don't have to think about it a whole lot. We don't have to negotiate about it. It's the same reason that things becoming a habit is so valuable, because we don't have to think about it a whole lot. We don't have to negotiate about it. It's the same thing with routine. Once we set a routine, we can have a plan in place and we don't have to debate it all the time. One of the guests we had, and I think I've talked about this other times, Joel Zaslavsky was talking about this idea of I make a plan and then when I hit that moment

and I'm supposed to go do this thing even when my mood is telling me oh I don't think I feel like it I don't want to do this he goes with the part of him that made the plan the old Joel he called it that made that plan and a routine is a very similar thing we've we've spent the time to think about what's important to us what we want to do the things that we know are good for us, and then we don't have to re-engage in the debate around those things all the time. Once you've got a routine in place, then the mental processes that make that behavior happen start to take place a lot more automatically. And we save time and energy and stress by sort of doing that mental to and froing of making a decision. And then the other thing is that instead of kind of having to create each day from scratch,

these routines can create a framework of all these small decisions that we don't have to make so we can spend more time on what matters. So what are some things that can help us with building these routines? So I think one we talk about all the time on the show is start small. You don't need to schedule out every minute of every day from now on, but it is very helpful, particularly for those people who have more time on their hands to schedule more of that time

so that there is less of that decision and it's less likely that that time just gets away from us. For whatever reason, when I have a lot of time on my hands, I find it very difficult. I get far less done than when I have less time and I am forced to schedule it better. Second would be, you know, let's be specific about what is the routine that I want to do. I want to work out every day, but more specifically, I want to do this specific exercise on this specific day. So the more clear we are, the easier it is to act on that routine. We don't have to, not only do we decide whether we want to do it or not, we also don't have to decide what we're going to do.

Getting support is another big one. Ask for help. Ask your friends to encourage you in the routine. Ask your family to encourage. There's applications out there, Lyft, it's called, it's now called coach.me. It's an iPhone app, you can get a lot of online support, but get get support where you can, and then plan for success and an interview that will be coming out soon. Another one where we talked with a woman about the process of thinking through the obstacles that stand in our way in advance so that when you encounter them, we know how to get over them. And then this last one, which is sort of paradoxical, is to really be flexible. So, yes, routine is important, but we also have to be flexible or we run into what we've talked about before, that all or nothing mentality, which is like either I do this thing every time perfectly, or I don't do it at all. And there's going to be days where we've got a routine plan

and something comes up. And it's important to have some flexibility and be able to make good decisions about okay, well, today, I said I was going to do this at noon, but there's this other thing going on that I think is important. And I can do this thing at another time. To just kind of reiterate, is important and I can do this thing at another time. To just kind of reiterate, I think that the main benefit of building some of these routines in our lives is that we don't wear ourselves out having to make decisions about a lot of small things. And then we can make better decisions about the big things and have much more energy to do the things that are important. And it reduces anxiety, it reduces stress, and it gives us more energy overall. Hopefully, that's helpful in some way. And we will

talk again soon. Thanks. Bye. Thank you.