Decision fatigue is a thing

The science behind why you can’t make up your mind

You decided what to wear, what to say during that meeting, what to eat for lunch, whether to follow up on that email, to order Thai for dinner, and that you’ll be watching Severance all by yourself tonight because your partner isn’t caught up and you’re not going to wait for them.

Then that partner interrupts you to ask, “So, what do you want to do this weekend?”

And your brain…is a blank. blue. screen.

Every weekend activity ever conceived in the history of humankind flashes through your brain at the exact same time, and it is impossible to choose.

This is decision fatigue.

It happens to everyone, but it’s especially (and frustratingly) common among people with ADHD.

The Science Behind ADHD & Decision-Making

1. Decision-making requires executive functioning: remembering stuff, restraining impulses, and regulating emotions. And because of the way ADHD brains are wired, these processes are heavy lifts.¹

2. ADHD brains have different reward pathways than “average” brains -- weaker rewards in some situations, stronger rewards in others, and differences in how the brain reacts to reward timing (this is where dopamine issues come in).² Because rewards don't operate as expected, the “most rewarding” decision can be harder to find.³

3. New research suggests that body sensations (like that feeling "in your gut") play a key role in decision-making -- and these body signals are usually quieter in ADHD brains.⁴

What Decision Fatigue Looks Like

Imagine our decision-making capacity is like a phone battery. Everybody’s battery starts to run out as the day goes on. But for ADHDers? It’s like you have 23 extra apps open, and at least 10 of those are streaming HD video—so that battery’s draining fast.

When the battery gets low, small decisions feel overwhelming.

You spend two hours researching which toaster to buy … and then slam your laptop shut in defeat.

You either freeze (“I don’t care, anything is fine!”) or impulsively buy the most expensive thing just to make the decision go away.

Your brain on decision fatigue. Photo by Wengang Zhai on Unsplash

What To Do About It

When it comes to decision-making, ADHDers are playing on hard mode. The key is finding ways to make decisions easier.

Here are three strategies that can help:

• Make important decisions when your brain is fresh. Decisions are usually easiest earlier in the day, after your brain is awake but before it’s too tired.

• Get rid of little decisions. Come up with your “default” option—your everyday outfit formula, lunch menu, jogging route, bedtime routine—so you don’t have to decide every single time.

• Create frameworks for decisions you make often. Things like time blocking (“Tuesdays are writing days”), decision thresholds (“purchases over $100 need a 24-hour wait”), or standard operating procedures (“if they don’t reply in 1 week, send 1 follow-up email”).

Try one of these out, and let me know how it goes! What worked? What didn’t?

Remember—when it comes to implementing strategies, it helps to think of it as an experiment. It might not work, and that’s okay! What matters is that we’re trying different things and paying attention to what is and isn’t working. Keep me posted on how it goes!

Warmly,

Taylor

P.S. When I’m pestering my fatigued husband to make a decision, his go-to strategy is to ask me to send an email. This way he can respond later, when he has more capacity. This meets my needs too—writing my question down gets it out of my brain so I can move on with my life.

1. Nigg, J. T. (2017). Annual Research Review: On the relations among self-regulation, self-control, executive functioning, effortful control, cognitive control, impulsivity, risk-taking, and inhibition for developmental psychopathology. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, and Allied Disciplines, 58(4), 361–383. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.12675

2. Grimm, O., van Rooij, D., Tshagharyan, A., Yildiz, D., Leonards, J., Elgohary, A., Buitelaar, J., & Reif, A. (2021). Effects of comorbid disorders on reward processing and connectivity in adults with ADHD. Translational Psychiatry, 11(1), 636. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41398-021-01758-0

Volkow, N. D., Wang, G.-J., Newcorn, J. H., Kollins, S. H., Wigal, T. L., Telang, F., Fowler, J. S., Goldstein, R. Z., Klein, N., Logan, J., Wong, C., & Swanson, J. M. (2011). Motivation deficit in ADHD is associated with dysfunction of the dopamine reward pathway. Molecular Psychiatry, 16(11), 1147–1154. https://doi.org/10.1038/mp.2010.97

3. Dekkers, T. J., de Water, E., & Scheres, A. (2022). Impulsive and risky decision-making in adolescents with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): The need for a developmental perspective. Current Opinion in Psychology, 44, 330–336. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2021.11.002

4. Halbe, E., Kolf, F., Heger, A. S., Hüpen, P., Bergmann, M., Aslan, B., Harrison, B. J., Davey, C. G., Philipsen, A., & Lux, S. (2023). Altered interaction of physiological activity and behavior affects risky decision-making in ADHD. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 17, 1147329. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2023.1147329