Recent Reads May 06-11

MustReadMay6

How to Consistently Write 1000 Words a Day
The Relationship of Reading and Writing
Famous Advice on Writing: The Collected Wisdom of Great Writers
The Science of Storytelling: Why Telling a Story is the Most Powerful Way to Activate our Brains

Health

A System for Getting to Sleep Earlier
The Scientific 7-minute Workout
Living Simply Manifesto:  72 Ideas to Simplify Your Life

Other

The Tyranny of Choice: You Choose on The Economist
11 Ways to be Unremarkably Average
I’m Still Here: Back Online A Year After Leaving The Internet

This week’s must reads (Nov 26 – Dec 1)

Decision FatigueMustRead-nov26dec1

Do You Suffer From Decision Fatigue? by By JOHN TIERNEY, New York Times

Mind over Mind? Decision Fatigue Saps Willpower — if We Let It by Maia Szalavitz, TIME

Yes, No, Maybe So: Defeating Decision Fatigue – Forbes

10 Ways to Limit Decision Fatigue

Running

Does Social Media Mean Better Running? RunnersWorld

Random

Ryan Carson’s bucket list

Giant Anaconda regurgitates a whole cow. Probably the most disgusting yet mesmerizing thing you’ll ever see.

Youversion.com Advent reading plans

Building habits to help you conserve energy

decisions

The first time I really noticed a serious lack of mental energy was the final weeks leading up to my wedding. By the week before I was experiencing serious decision fatigue. I was so tired of weighing pros and cons and deciding what was best. It was extremely taxing to do so by that time. Shortly after my wedding New York Times published an article called Do You Suffer From Decision Fatigue? It was really enlightening. A few minutes later I realized that I was again struggling to have enough mental energy at work. As I evaluated what was going on, I found that I spent a lot of time making decisions. Since I’m in charge of my own schedule, decisions I had to make every ranged from ‘what will I do today?’ ‘what are my priorities’ ‘what should I eat for lunch?’ ‘what should I make for supper?’ on top of having intense meetings with people and speaking more and more in a second language. By November I was really tired of all the decisions I had to make all the time. I’m a really low structure person, so I love the freedom I have in my work, but I was finding it was stealing energy from my most important tasks: meeting with people.

The Power of Habits

Back in October I listed this interview in my weekly must read. It helped me figure out how to manage some of those problems I had last year. If you don’t have time to watch the interview, here’s the key thing I took away from it: your brain actually powers down when you’re engaging in a habitual activity. That’s why smoking is so hard to quit. It isn’t necessarily the nicotine so much as it is the rest your brain gets while doing that habitual activity. I bet you know where I’m going to go with this now.

Developing Habits to Conserve energy

Last year I took a step towards controlling my life and decided to do meal plans. I found that I was so tired after work that the idea of thinking of what to make was just too much, even though I really enjoy cooking! So Sunday evenings I make a meal plan for the week and go grocery shopping on Monday evening after work. Then I post the meal plan in our kitchen so I don’t even need to think. I’ve already decided what was best to eat what day based on what we were doing. Setting aside 30-40 minutes to meal plan and grocery shop every week at the same time saved me a lot of mental stress. It was a real turning point for me. This one switch had a real impact on my life.

Practically speaking

This might mean different things for different people. Some might benefit from the meal-planning idea. Others might benefit from having a set schedule every week at work (if their jobs are like mine) where they have allotted time for their various responsibilities and keep that pattern every week so they don’t have to think ‘what do I do now?’ after an appointment. For business leaders it might mean sticking closely to your Strategic Plan, instead of changing and rethinking it every month. If you focus on executing, you’ll have more energy to do just that. If you’re a mom, maybe the habits that would be helpful to build is a routine/schedule with your kids so you have more energy to deal with their meltdowns.

The point is, when you’re not making 1000 decisions a day about what’s next or what your priorities, you have more emotional energy for the people/things that matter most.

So what about you? What habits or routines do you think would be helpful for you to incorporate in your life/work to avoid decision fatigue or wasting mental energy? Click here to leave a comment.

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