How to Beat Decision Fatigue

Описание: Decision fatigue is silently destroying your judgment—and you don't even know it's happening. Your brain doesn't shut down when it's tired. It quietly lowers its standards and never tells you.

A nurse in Pennsylvania stayed late to help her short-staffed unit. During that overtime, she forgot a patient's second chemotherapy dose. It wasn't discovered until the next day. She wasn't careless—she was depleted. Her skills didn't fail. Her energy failed, and her judgment went with it. That's decision fatigue in action.

In this episode, you'll learn why the popular "battery drain" theory of decision fatigue was debunked by two massive replication studies—and what actually happens to your brain instead. You'll discover four warning signals that decision fatigue has compromised your thinking, four moves to protect your judgment when mental fatigue hits, and why pre-commitment is the most powerful strategy for beating decision fatigue before it starts.

🔗 LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS VIDEO:
→ Mindjacking Episode (Episode 9):    • Mindjacking — When Your Opinions Aren't Yours  
→ Support the Team on Substack: https://philmckinney.substack.com/
→ Watch the Full Thinking 101 Series:    • THINKING 101 -  The Essential Skills They ...  

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 - How decision fatigue cost a nurse her judgment
01:19 - Why the "battery drain" theory of decision fatigue was wrong
02:44 - Decision fatigue in doctors, surgeons, and analysts
04:24 - Four warning signals your judgment is fatigued
06:31 - Four moves to beat decision fatigue
08:49 - Recovery as a decision-making strategy
10:58 - Your pre-commitment challenge
13:25 - What's next

📚 SOURCES & REFERENCES:
• Berxi/NCSBN case studies - Pennsylvania nurse fatigue incident (chemotherapy administration error) https://www.berxi.com/resources/artic...
• Linder, J.A., et al. (2014) - "Time of Day and the Decision to Prescribe Antibiotics" JAMA Internal Medicine https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama...
• Hagger, M.S., et al. (2016) - "A Multilab Preregistered Replication of the Ego-Depletion Effect" Perspectives on Psychological Science https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1...
• Vohs, K.D., et al. (2021) - "A Multisite Preregistered Paradigmatic Test of the Ego-Depletion Effect" Psychological Science https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1...
• Levav, J., et al. (2010) - "Order in Product Customization Decisions" Journal of Political Economy https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi...
• Dai, H., et al. (2015) - "The Impact of Time at Work and Time Off From Work on Rule Compliance" Journal of Applied Psychology https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25365...
More details on the sources and references are in the show notes for this episode on philmckinney.com

🎯 THIS VIDEO IS PART OF THE THINKING 101 SERIES:
A complete curriculum on the essential thinking skills they never taught you — including how to recognize decision fatigue, cognitive bias, and mental shortcuts that hijack your judgment. Start with Episode 1 or jump in anywhere—each episode stands alone. Watch at:    • THINKING 101 -  The Essential Skills They ...  

👉 SUBSCRIBE for weekly episodes on thinking, decisions, and innovation:    / @philmckinney  
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Website: https://www.philmckinney.com
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📖 ABOUT PHIL McKINNEY:
Phil McKinney is the Innovation Decision Expert—former CTO of Hewlett-Packard and CEO of CableLabs, with decades of experience making billion-dollar innovation decisions. He teaches the frameworks that actually work in the face of uncertainty, mental fatigue, and decision overload.
🛠️ INNOVATION TOOLS: https://innovation.tools
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