The Turtleneck Theory
Protecting our mental energy
We make 35,000 decisions per day. THIRTY FIVE THOUSAND!
Ranging from trivial to important, when we make those decisions our finite brain power pays the tax.
According to psychiatrists, our ability to make more decisions throughout the day gets worse.
In the morning, we make slower and more accurate decisions. By the end of the day, the quality of those decisions plummet or we avoid making them altogether.
That’s called decision fatigue and every one of us is susceptible.
The Turtleneck Theory posits that by automating trivial decisions, like what to wear each day, we can protect our mental capacity, focussing on what really matters and still finish the day with high levels of mental energy and cognitive ability.
Steve Jobs famously wore the same black turtleneck sweater each day to reduce decision fatigue and he isn’t the only one to rock the same daily outfit. It’s simply one less decision to make.
Opening up a closet of only black turtlenecks makes it a pretty easy decision what to wear. In fact, it’s not even a decision anymore.
The paradox of choice means that when faced with too many options, we struggle to make the optimal choice or any choice at all. By narrowing our options, there is no need for us to waste our finite brain power on those trivial decisions.
Now I’m not suggesting that you throw your clothes out and replace it with the same grey t-shirt that Zuckerberg wears every day.
But what I am suggesting is that we can reduce fatigue and mental exhaustion by automating many of our decisions through simple daily habits and routines.
There are hundreds of decisions we can automate. What to eat for breakfast and lunch, what time to wake up, what day and time to go to the gym, what route to drive home from work, what to wear, what time to go to bed, financial commitments on auto-pay. The list is endless.
These decisions are hardly life or death, but by taking choice off the table we expend less mental energy throughout the day.
We all have innate untapped human potential. To mine for that gold we need to go to work on ourselves. Through work, study, practice, discipline and consistency, we are all able to become a better version of who we are today.
But in order to tap into the unexplored and to venture into a realm of possibilities, we must protect our mental energy at all costs.
It’s usually the decisions we make to work on our own physical or mental self-improvement that suffer the most from decision fatigue. We drain our finite brain power throughout the day and then we make suboptimal decisions that would benefit our pursuit of personal growth and development.
The Turtleneck Theory challenges you to automate trivial daily decisions that expend mental energy. What will you start with?