RS040: Avoiding Decision Fatigue in Your Startup

Today Dave and I are digging into a problem that every bootstrapped startup founder faces:  Decision Fatigue.

But first we both catch up on our businesses and what we’ve been up to since our trip to Rhodium Weekend 2 weeks ago.

Dave has been busy in the WordPress world, adding to his portfolio of plugins.  His new CRM plugin has been largely rewritten and relaunched in the repo.  After looking hard at acquiring a SaaS app he’s refocused solidly on building his WordPress empire until an other acquisition opportunity comes along

Craig has been heads down with PodcastMotor and has been growing both customer base and his marketing efforts.  A recent giveaway campaign added 4,000+ email subscribers to the email list, which he’s hoping to use to better serve podcasters with software and information products in the near future.  On top of that several high profile articles from The Huffington Post, The Next Web, and Inc.com have nicely boosted both SEO rankings and direct referrals to the concierge service.

It has been documented that excessive decisions through out a day not only result in poorer decisions but worse execution towards those decisions as well. We offer a handful of ways to minimize decision fatigue and optimize your thought process throughout the day in order to stay sharp and keep making good decisions.

Two articles describe this extremely well.  The first is a NY Times article regarding some of the psychology of decision fatigue, some of the legal cases in which it has been verified, and things that psychologists recommend for us to do in order to minimize the negative effects of decision fatigue on your business.

Adding on top of that Buffer has an excellent blog post that talks about some practical ways that us as startup founders can minimize decision fatigue in our businesses.  There are 5 main points to consider when trying to reduce decision fatigue in your business:

1.) Know your limits–plan your day effectively based on your history/patterns

2.) Make decisions that free you from making more decisions–meals, clothes, entertainment, etc

3.) Choose products that energize you instead of drain you

4.) Help others with their decisions

Never say “Whatever you want is fine with me”

5.) Simplify one thing right now

6.) EAT WELL and consistently

So how do you avoid excessive decision fatigue in your startup?  Leave a comment below and let’s share some best practices to make overwhelming decisions a thing of the past in our businesses.

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