How Teachers and Trainers Can Avoid Decision Fatigue

Highlights Introduction Making decisions uses considerable mental energy which is limited (00:42 ). Decision fatigue is real (00:52). Educators make a lot of decisions - some significant - so it is definitely worth looking at ways to minimise the number of small decisions we make daily, to reserve energy for the big ones (01:42). Small Decisions Time for a brain dump (01:58). List the small decisions you have to make every day. Examples (02:19): What to eat for lunch/dinner. When to each lunch/dinner. What time to wake up and go to bed. What to do at the gym. What to wear to go to the gym. What to wear to work. What Can You Automate, Delegate or Eliminate? Automate: make automatic, or at least systematised (03:10). Delegate: perhaps to a partner, family member, friend or professional service provider (03:31). Eliminate: get rid of completely! (03:48) Automate Fully automatic: social media, direct debits, comment bank (05:19). Systematised: podcast workflow (Notion template), shopping list (Bring), The Teaching Space Extra (08:00). Delegate Gardening, cleaning and meal planning (Hello Fresh) - I fully acknowledge my privilege in being able to do this (10:33). Skill swap with friends or family - just ask! I now have a new podcast interview editor… (12:03). Eliminate To eliminate decisions entirely, form habits (e.g. gym every day etc). Check out habits podcast episode theteachingspace.com/49, as well as James Clear’s book, Atomic Habits (13:34). Examples: wake up time (see the sleep episode theteachingspace.com/109), clothing (like Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg and Barack Obama!) (14:22). Community example: Bob’s robot mower and mulcher (16:05). Postpone? Sometimes it is better to postpone (16:45). Over to You What about you? Let’s chat in the community (17:15 ). Helpful links The Teaching Space Community Readwise 5 Ways Teachers Can Mark Faster and Smarter and 5 More Ways Teachers Can Mark Faster and Smarter (podcast episodes) Create Positive Habits That Stick (podcast episode) How to Sleep Better An Interview with Daniel White (podcast episode) Atomic Habits by James Clear Notion template for podcasters Bring app The Teaching Space Extra