During a decluttering and organizing project, hundreds or thousands of decisions need to be made.  There are two choices for the disposition of each object: keep it or get rid of it.  Those two choices contain sub-choices: where to keep it and where to get rid of it.  It can be relatively easy to make decisions about objects we don’t care much about.  For example, decisions made for items stored in the garage are usually easier to make than ones about gifts from family.  Motor oil doesn’t generally come with emotional baggage!

Each decision you make adds up and can eventually lead to decision fatigue.  Just like exercising at the gym, there comes a point where you are too exhausted to continue.  If you are walking on the treadmill, it might take you 2 hours to get to that point of fatigue, but if you do some sprints or HIIT your limit might be 5 minutes.  The same is true with decision fatigue.  While you might be able to make garage-stuff decisions for six hours and finish the project in a day, the baby-related things you stored in the basement after you stopped having children could leave you exhausted after 45 minutes.

Beyond the emotional burden that leads to fatigue, some items require many more decisions for the same volume of space and will affect decision fatigue.  A bookshelf might contain 30 books.  Each book represents a couple of decisions (your two decisions might be “I’ll keep it and it will stay on this shelf”).  If you take that same amount of space and fill it with unopened mail, you will find yourself with thousands of decisions.  Each piece of mail still takes the same number of decisions (“I don’t need it and I’ll throw it in the recycling bin”) but 50 envelopes could fit in the space where only one book would fit.  You’ll hit your decision fatigue point and have much less space cleared, despite the decisions themselves being no more difficult in either situation.

There are strategies to reduce fatigue and recharge when you hit your limit.  Here are some of the most effective:

1. Be prepared with a plan: If you know you will be dealing with emotionally challenging items, plan ahead by selecting a back-up area that has easier items to switch to when you feel yourself getting tired.  The change of focus for a brief period can be enough to refresh you.

2. Use a timer: Set a timer for 10 minutes and make decisions only for that period.  Once the timer goes off, stop for the day.  Repeat tomorrow.  Unless you have an external deadline (like the sale of a house), 10 minutes a day will get you there eventually, and you won’t be burned out on your way there.

3. Take care of yourself: Show up to the project having eaten high quality and low-carbohydrate foods (meat or eggs) and have some water handy.  If you are sluggish and have brain fog from “carb-brain” or dehydration, decisions will be harder and you’ll get worn out faster.

4. Measure differently: Don’t let lack of visual progress disappoint you.  For high density decision spaces, measure your progress in creative ways like by number of discarded pieces or weight of your recycling so that you have evidence of progress.

5. Pair with fun: Cue up your favorite podcast or an upbeat Spotify music playlist to add some fun to the project and balance out the difficulty of decision-making.

It can be discouraging to find yourself struggling to make decisions because of decision fatigue but just like training at the gym you can build your decision muscles by exercising them.  The more you practice making decisions, the more decisions you’ll be able to make before becoming fatigued.  Think of each stretch of work like a gym training session.  You’ll be a decision-making athlete in no time!