Decision Fatigue Is Real (and Mostly Solvable)
The "willpower depletion" framing was partly debunked. The "decision throughput" framing replaced it — and it's the actionable version.
The classic "willpower depletion" model — that self-control runs on glucose and depletes through the day — got partially overturned in the 2010s. The original Baumeister findings turned out to be harder to replicate than the original splashy results suggested.
But a more nuanced version of the idea survived the replication crisis: people make fewer and worse decisions late in the day, especially when they've been making lots of small ones earlier. Whether you call it depletion, fatigue, or just bandwidth, the effect is real.
You have a daily decision budget. Stop spending it on what to wear and what to eat.
The classic example: judges granting parole. Studies of Israeli judges showed parole grant rates dropping from ~65% to nearly 0% over the course of a morning, then resetting after lunch, then dropping again. The same defendant evaluated at 9am vs 4pm gets very different outcomes.
The implication for everyday life is the same logic. The decisions you make at 6pm are systematically worse than the decisions you make at 9am. So either don't make important decisions in the afternoon, or pre-decide as much as possible.
Pre-deciding looks like: same breakfast every weekday. Limited wardrobe rotation. Recurring grocery list. Workout schedule on a fixed weekly grid. The decisions you eliminate aren't lost — they're moved to the morning when you set them up, or moved to weekly planning when the cost is lower.
The high-leverage version: the major decisions of your life — career moves, relationship choices, financial decisions — get made in the morning, well-rested, after movement and light, not at the end of the day when you're tired and your brain is asking "what would feel good right now."
Steve Jobs wore the same outfit. Obama did the same. The principle wasn't aesthetic. It was bandwidth conservation.
