Three Strategies for Combating Decision-Fatigue
Like most people, I am asking myself plenty of questions; What will work look like in the fall? How can I support BIPOC leaders in my community? When will I be able to see people face-to-face? How am I doing? During this time of uncertainty these questions can be overwhelming. It becomes easy to reach decision-making-fatigue when we are making choices about the questions, actions, and problems to tackle daily. Yet, there are still decisions to be made and tasks to be completed. Through my recent projects with See What I Mean, I have learned new ways to adapt and cope with decision-fatigue.
1) Identify the decisions you need to make
It can be difficult to know where to start. Meet with colleagues or form a cohort to understand the questions that need to be answered
What challenges face your organization?
What choices have you had to make so far?
Use this time to identify the choices you need to consider and possible strategies. This is also a time where opportunities may emerge. Consider how you can co-create with one another:
How can we share our resources with one another?
Are we including BIPOC leaders at the table for equitable choices?
2) Use a menu of options to reduce complexity
Sometimes brainstorming creates more options than you need. See What I Mean has found selecting from a menu of possible choices is a productive alternative to brainstorming while we’re struggling with decision making fatigue. Listing choices allows your organization to deeply analyze and reflect on each choice by asking questions like:
What do we have the capacity to do right now?
What does the timeline look like for these choices?
What choices should we put on pause?
A list of possibilities makes organizing your plan easier. An organization can focus on saying “yes” or “no” rather than “what can we do right now” or “What do we need”.
3) Use tools to transform choices into a plan
After organizing the options and focusing on specific choices, use tools to create a plan. Often we are left with data from surveys without a plan for using the data. At See What I Mean we have utilized tools like SurveyGizmo to turn surveys into tangible plans the survey participants can use. Instead of just making choices, these tools allow you to put your choices on a timeline and end the survey with an action plan to share with your team. We were inspired to use this strategy when we came across this tool from Category One Consulting.
Each day it feels we are challenged with new tasks. Through this time of confusion and difficult choices comes an abundance of possibilities to enhance your organizations work, create new connections, and provide new opportunities. It’s important to have a plan to embrace the new choices you face and not get overwhelmed. Adoption of new practices or initiatives during this time of disruption is difficult. We need a better understanding of the tools of influence we can use to support people and organizations in adopting emerging opportunities. Follow along for our next blog going further in detail on how to conceptualize and organize your thinking to make these choices stick.