Decision Fatigue: How to Spot, Prevent & Overcome it as an Entrepreneur
GUEST AUTHOR: Rachel Jenkins, Founder & Principal Concierge at Ally Concierge
You deserve space to thrive and enjoy life daily, not just in time-blocked sections a few times per calendar year. Mm'kay?
Being an entrepreneur or business executive is a demanding career choice.
If you’re not consciously paying attention, you’ll quickly become overwhelmed with the plethora of decisions required from moment to moment and quarter to quarter.
In this guest blog article, we learn from Rachel Jenkins, Founder and principal Concierge at Ally Concierge. Rachel works with entrepreneurs and business executives all over the Pacific Northwest to help them avoid decision fatigue. Her unique approach has helped many people advance their business success, give undivided attention to their families, and prioritize activities for their well-being.
Why Decision Fatigue Threatens an Entrepreneur's Success
Time deficiency is the leading cause of burnout when decision fatigue sets in.
Many decisions need more time and mental space for intuition and grace to play out and assist the outcome, especially when logic and speed are revered in systems designed for management.
In today's fast-paced, “always-on” work environment, busy professionals often find themselves stretched thin, juggling many tasks that leave little room for personal time or mental health.
The pressure to perform and the constant influx of responsibilities can decrease personal satisfaction.
How to Spot Decision Fatigue
Let’s take a look and determine if decision fatigue is hurting your mental well-being. If several of these relate to your current life, you’re likely battling decision fatigue:
You’re feeling stressed even though you’re renowned for being a high performer and taking on the hard stuff
You begrudgingly roll out of bed at the last possible minute every day
You’re isolating yourself every moment you can to escape and avoid all to-do’s
You’re experiencing extra sleepiness throughout the day
You’ve been battling an upset stomach lately
People you usually enjoy being around are calling you out for being irritable
You’re being short with people you usually like working with
You find yourself impulsively shopping to feel better
You find yourself ruminating on decisions already made
You’re experiencing tension headaches at a frequency that is abnormal for you
You’re avoiding making decisions
If you’re nodding your head yes, it’s likely time you start thinking about reducing your decision fatigue before things worsen.
5 Ways to Overcome & Prevent Decision Fatigue
1. Schedule Downtime & Mental Breaks in More Frequently
As entrepreneurs and business executives, we may not be able to take extended time off, but we can certainly build more time into our schedules.
Depending on the control you have over your schedule, this could mean taking more half days or extending your weekends by a few Fridays and Mondays to prevent stress from building up.
If you work in a corporate setting, you could also negotiate an alternative work schedule that builds breaks into your team’s schedule to give them more time to recharge.
When I worked a corporate desk job, I advocated for work-life balance and started a wellness committee in our local office. Not only did we negotiate standing desks for everyone, but we also introduced a 2-hour break that allowed those who wanted it time to head to the gym for a 30-minute stress-relieving cardio workout & shower during their lunch break.
While it meant I had to show up an hour earlier, this 2-hour lunch break gave me time to address my need for physical and mental stress relief. As a result, I could more easily resume being the Claims Analyst Excel maven they hired.
2. Invest in continuing education
Consider hiring a life coach to assist you with processing, analyzing, and decision-making. They are trained to cut through distractions and help you hone in on your intuition and confidently take steps forward.
Alternatively, you can compile a list of books to read to improve your decision-making skills.
I recommend you start by reading Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work by Chip and Dan Heath.
3. Outsource Work Tasks That “Suck”
Any tasks on your recurring to-do list that you notice either suck the life out of you or just generally suck to have to do every week or month are great things to look into outsourcing to a virtual assistant or executive assistant (ahem!.. like our friends here at The Boutique COO!).
This way, you share the mental load. You could partially (or fully) outsource tasks such as sales calls, accounting, blog posts, reports and slide decks, social media marketing, etc. to a virtual assistant at The Boutique COO.
Read more: 4 Clever Time-Saving Hacks for Busy Entrepreneurs (using Virtual Assistants)
4. Delegate Your Personal To-Do List
Another unique solution to decision fatigue that can provide significant relief and boost efficiency is hiring a private fractional lifestyle concierge to take over your errands and tasks.
Many have probably heard of virtual assistants, executive assistants, and even personal assistants for business support, but most have never heard of or considered a private personal Lifestyle Concierge.
With a lifestyle concierge, you can outsource tasks that require your physical presence. These include taking your car for a wash and oil change, folding and stowing all of the clean clothes piled up around the house, and stopping by the veterinary office after work to grab more medicine for Fifi's cat.
Having a lifestyle concierge will free up your personal time and allow you to reprioritize it to what matters most to you—connecting, building, and playing MORE!
Where Can You Hire a Lifestyle Concierge?
Let’s face it: It isn’t the American way to hire help and let go of our productivity validation, but there is a better way to prioritize mental health.
At Ally Concierge, our ACEs (Ally Concierge Experts) provide proactive, hypervigilant, and diverse support to become your most reliable partner in daily life—your ally—for everything in the category popularly referenced as “adulting.”
When you have an ‘ACE’ in your pocket to pull out when you need more free time but also need to get sh*t done, you unlock an elevated level of lifestyle beyond the hamster wheel you are currently experiencing and know.
An ACE can do all these so you can go straight home to see and be with your family, schedule another tennis match with your favorite sister, focus on completing that project before the deadline, or just keep on driving to your favorite scenic spot to sit and soak in nature’s healing silence.
You gain SO MUCH space to live in FLOW.
Interested in Hiring an ACE Lifestyle Concierge?
Recognizing that hiring an ally is not a sign of weakness or inability is essential.
It is a strategic decision that reflects a commitment to maximizing productivity and maintaining health. By delegating personal tasks to a capable assistant, professionals essentially invest in their success and well-being.
If you find yourself constantly battling against the clock and feeling the weight of your responsibilities, it’s time to consider putting an ‘ACE’ in your pocket!
If you’re interested in hiring an ACE for your business, open up a conversation with us here to get started.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rachel Jenkins is the founder and Principal Concierge at Ally Concierge, a Pacific Northwest Agency specializing in domestic private staffing and lifestyle concierge fractional membership support. Rachel combined her love of basketball and two decades of hypervigilant professional experience in healthcare to create “the perfect assist” service-based business.
