I’ve read that the reason why holidays are so exhausting is because when you’re on holiday, you have to make loads of decisions about everything — you don’t have your regular routine to rely on, and this leads to decision fatigue. Even though regular life isn’t as bad as this, it’s still way more than what most students have to deal with. The little tasks can really drain your executive function if there’s enough of them
Sometimes after a long day of work, my wife will come and ask me a simple question like “which of these two colours should we get for the new curtains?” And I’ll respond, “I don’t know, I can’t decide right now, I’m out of mental capacity”, she’ll push and say “just choose one”, and I have to explain “seriously. I physically cannot. I’ve spent all my decision making quota today. It’s not possible for me to make another decision”.
I find it weird that your wife pushes you on this to the extent that you need to explain. I don’t mean this in a judgemental way at all — I’m just confused and wondering whether people like your wife don’t experience this same kind of decision fatigue, which would suggest that our experience isn’t universal. I’ve also known people who similarly seem to not understand how it feels to literally be unable to make decisions due to exhaustion. Those people are baffling to me, but I seem to be equally baffling to them
The example I gave with my wife was a superficial hypothetical scenario to illustrate my point. She usually doesn’t actually push back on it, she has been married to me long enough now to understand my neuro idiosyncracies.
I’m ASD and ADHD, so I’ve been told that decision fatigue is a common symptom. But I also know neuro typical people in my field who experience the exact same issue.
There’s a lot of factors that go into it, and everyone will have a different experience. There are some people who make an average of zero decisions in their normal day. There are some who are required to make hundreds of decisions per day. There are some people in highly stressful jobs who need to make very important decisions. Some people have naturally higher capacity for decisions than others.
I’ve read that the reason why holidays are so exhausting is because when you’re on holiday, you have to make loads of decisions about everything — you don’t have your regular routine to rely on, and this leads to decision fatigue. Even though regular life isn’t as bad as this, it’s still way more than what most students have to deal with. The little tasks can really drain your executive function if there’s enough of them
Sometimes after a long day of work, my wife will come and ask me a simple question like “which of these two colours should we get for the new curtains?” And I’ll respond, “I don’t know, I can’t decide right now, I’m out of mental capacity”, she’ll push and say “just choose one”, and I have to explain “seriously. I physically cannot. I’ve spent all my decision making quota today. It’s not possible for me to make another decision”.
Yeah, I relate to this so hard.
I find it weird that your wife pushes you on this to the extent that you need to explain. I don’t mean this in a judgemental way at all — I’m just confused and wondering whether people like your wife don’t experience this same kind of decision fatigue, which would suggest that our experience isn’t universal. I’ve also known people who similarly seem to not understand how it feels to literally be unable to make decisions due to exhaustion. Those people are baffling to me, but I seem to be equally baffling to them
The example I gave with my wife was a superficial hypothetical scenario to illustrate my point. She usually doesn’t actually push back on it, she has been married to me long enough now to understand my neuro idiosyncracies.
I’m ASD and ADHD, so I’ve been told that decision fatigue is a common symptom. But I also know neuro typical people in my field who experience the exact same issue.
There’s a lot of factors that go into it, and everyone will have a different experience. There are some people who make an average of zero decisions in their normal day. There are some who are required to make hundreds of decisions per day. There are some people in highly stressful jobs who need to make very important decisions. Some people have naturally higher capacity for decisions than others.
I just say a random one, it’s likely she’ll go with the other one anyway!