Decision Fatigue Is Killing Your Workplace: What You Don't See Coming

Date: November 21, 2025

It's 2 PM on a Wednesday.

You're at your desk. You've had 47 Slack messages since this morning, 3 urgent emails marked red, 2 meetings back-to-back, and your brain feels like it's running through molasses. Someone just asked you a simple question—something you normally handle in seconds—and for some reason, the thought of making one more decision feels like climbing Everest.

You're not lazy. You're not incompetent. You're not bad at time management.

You're experiencing decision fatigue—and you're not alone.

80% of global knowledge workers report feeling overworked and close to burnout. The average adult makes approximately 35,000 decisions per day. That's not hyperbole. That's your brain, every single day, being asked to make choices at a scale it was never designed to handle.

This isn't about productivity hacks or better calendar management. This is about understanding the psychological phenomenon that's quietly draining your mental energy, destroying your focus, and making you feel like you're failing—when the real problem is that your brain simply isn't wired for this level of constant choice.

What Is Decision Fatigue? (And Why Your Brain Is Running on Empty)

Decision fatigue doesn't have a catchy name in most workplaces, but researchers have been studying it for years. Here's the simple definition: Decision fatigue is the deteriorating quality of decisions we make after a long session of decision-making.

Think of it like a battery. Every decision drains a little charge. Small decisions drain less. Big decisions drain more. But they all drain. By noon, you might be at 30%. By 3 PM, you're at 10%. By 5 PM, you're hitting "E" and your brain is coasting on fumes.

This phenomenon was first discovered by social psychologist Roy F. Baumeister, and it's been validated across dozens of studies since then. One of the most compelling came from Stanford researcher Jonathan Levav, who studied Israeli parole hearings. He found something shocking: The biggest determining factor for whether inmates would receive parole wasn't based on facts—it was the time of day the hearing took place. Prisoners with early morning hearings received parole 70% of the time. By the afternoon? Only 10% received parole. Same judges. Same case facts. Just decision fatigue.

The science is clear: your brain has a finite amount of mental energy available for decision-making. Every choice you make depletes that energy. And once it's depleted, your ability to think clearly, prioritize effectively, and make sound judgments collapses.

Here's the part most people get wrong: Decision fatigue isn't just about being tired. You can get 8 hours of sleep and still feel it the next day. It's not about physical exhaustion. It's about cognitive depletion. Your executive function weakens—your ability to prioritize, focus, and think strategically declines. The decisions you make become either avoided altogether (procrastination) or rushed and impulsive (just pick the easiest option).

And then the cycle repeats.

You make bad decisions because you're fatigued. Those bad decisions create more work. More work means more decisions. More decisions means deeper fatigue. You're stuck in a vicious loop where the harder you work, the worse you get.

Why Modern Work Created the Perfect Storm for Decision Fatigue

Here's what's wild: decision fatigue has always existed. But modern work—specifically, the tools and culture we've built around constant communication—has transformed it from an occasional annoyance into a constant state.

The numbers tell the story.

The average employee receives 120 messages per day. Not just email. Messages. Slack pings, Teams notifications, comments on documents, meeting reminders. Each one representing a micro-decision: Do I look at this now or later? Is this urgent? Do I need to respond?

Knowledge workers are interrupted every 3 to 11 minutes. And it takes an average of 23 minutes and 15 seconds to refocus after each interruption. Do the math: in an 8-hour workday, that's an enormous chunk of time spent not actually working—just recovering from interruptions.

And here's the kicker: Employees spend 30% of their workday searching for information they need to do their jobs. That means if you're at your desk for 8 hours, 2.4 of those hours are spent hunting for data that should be findable.

But it's not just the volume. It's the type of decisions modern work has created.

In traditional work structures, your decisions were relatively clear. You had defined responsibilities, defined goals, and a defined scope. You could make maybe 100 conscious decisions a day, plus another few thousand automatic ones (muscle memory, learned processes).

Now? You're drowning in micro-decisions:

• Is this email urgent or can it wait?

• Do I respond in this Slack thread or send a DM?

• Which of these 5 Slack channels actually has the answer I need?

• Is this meeting necessary or can I skip it?

• What's actually the top priority today—the thing my boss emphasized yesterday, or the urgent issue that just came up?

• Do I check that notification or stay focused?

Each one seems trivial. Together, they're annihilating your mental capacity.

The notification trap is particularly vicious. Every ping creates what researchers call "decision residue." Even deciding not to respond still taxes your brain. Your nervous system stays in alert mode all day. It's like having someone tap your shoulder every few minutes asking if you're ready for them—except you're never not expecting the tap, so you never fully relax.

When priorities aren't clear—and let's be honest, they rarely are in most organizations—you have to make even more decisions. If your boss doesn't explicitly tell you which task is most important, you have to decide. If you choose wrong, you'll redo it. That's redundant decision-making, which means you're depleting your battery faster and producing worse results.

And here's the emotional component that often gets overlooked: Decision fatigue isn't purely cognitive. It's emotional too. The stress from constant information flow impacts mental well-being, causing anxiety, irritability, and loss of motivation. You're not just mentally tired. You're anxious. You feel scattered. By mid-afternoon, you're emotionally depleted.

The Early Warning Signs: Do You Have Decision Fatigue?

Decision fatigue doesn't announce itself with a big sign. It creeps in. One day you notice you're having trouble focusing. A few days later, small tasks feel monumental. A week later, you're wondering if you're just not cut out for your job.

But there are warning signs. If you recognize yourself in these, you probably have decision fatigue:

Mental Symptoms

Brain fog. Everything feels fuzzy. You open an email and re-read it three times because the first two times didn't register. You sit down to write something and stare at a blank screen for 10 minutes, unable to start.

Difficulty with small decisions. The irony of decision fatigue is that it makes even simple choices feel impossible. What should you eat for lunch? It shouldn't require thought. But when you're fatigued, you'll stand in front of the fridge for five minutes, unable to decide, and eventually just grab something.

Analysis paralysis. You keep re-reading documents instead of acting on them. You write an email, delete it, rewrite it, delete it again. You can't commit to a choice because committing feels risky.

Overthinking everything. Everything suddenly seems like it needs to be perfect. A task that should take 10 minutes takes 45 because you're obsessing over details that normally wouldn't matter.

Avoidance. Important tasks pile up. Not because you don't want to do them, but because you literally can't decide where to start. The overwhelm makes action feel impossible.

Physical Symptoms

Fatigue lives in your body too.

Tension headaches. Usually starting mid-afternoon and getting worse as the day goes on.

Constant tiredness. Even after 8 hours of sleep. You wake up and you're already exhausted.

Physical tightness. In your shoulders, jaw, neck. You're clenching without realizing it.

Sleep problems. Your brain won't shut off at night, even though you're exhausted. You lie awake thinking about work decisions, replaying conversations, or anticipating tomorrow's problems.

Reaching for quick energy. You're grabbing sugary snacks or more coffee. Your brain is signaling that it needs glucose to restore energy (which is accurate—decision-making burns glucose). But you're chasing quick fixes instead of addressing the root cause.

Behavioral Symptoms

Impulsive decisions. You're making snap choices just to get the decision over with. "Yeah, I'll take that project. Sure, I'll join that meeting. Fine, whatever." You're not thoughtful anymore. You're just trying to clear the deck.

Irritability over minor things. A colleague asks a simple question and you snap at them. Someone makes a joke and you take it personally. You're on edge because your brain is running on empty.

Withdrawal. You're less engaged with your team. Less collaborative. You're in your own head, trying to manage the overwhelm.

Declining work quality. Your work is still getting done, but it doesn't have the polish it used to. You're cutting corners. You're not catching errors you normally would. You're shipping things that are "good enough" instead of good.

Procrastination on non-urgent items. The things that aren't on fire never get done. You're reactive, not proactive. You're surviving, not thriving.

Difficulty saying no. You say yes to requests even though you're drowning. Why? Because saying no requires energy. Making an argument requires energy. Just saying yes is easier in the moment, even though it creates more problems later.

The Self-Doubt Component

Here's where decision fatigue becomes truly insidious. 62% of knowledge workers experience imposter syndrome. When you're mentally fatigued, that voice gets loud.

You start thinking: Maybe I'm not cut out for this job. Maybe I'm just bad at managing my time. Maybe everyone else handles this fine and I'm the only one struggling.

This is the dangerous part. You blame yourself instead of recognizing the system that's created the overload. You think you need to work harder, be more disciplined, use a better planner. You don't recognize that you're not broken—your workflow is.

How Decision Fatigue Spreads Across Teams (It's Not Just About You)

Here's what makes decision fatigue particularly destructive in organizations: it doesn't stay contained. It spreads.

When leaders are fatigued, they make worse decisions that cascade down the entire team. Those bad decisions create more work and more decisions for everyone else. A unclear strategy from leadership means your team has to make more "What should we prioritize?" decisions. Ambiguous project goals mean each team member has to decide what success looks like. Conflicting direction means people have to resolve the conflicts themselves instead of having clarity from above.

Slack makes this worse in a specific way. The constant visibility creates a feeling that you need to keep up. Am I missing something? Are my colleagues more engaged than me? Is my boss noticing that I'm not as responsive? This FOMO (fear of missing out) keeps people checking constantly. People work late, work weekends, work during vacation—not because the work actually requires it, but because they're anxious about being perceived as not engaged.

When team members are all fatigued, team dynamics break down:

• People become less collaborative (you're protecting your own limited energy)

• Decision quality declines across the board (everyone's thinking is fuzzy)

• Miscommunication increases (tired brains interpret things negatively)

• Trust erodes (people are on edge, interpreting neutral comments as criticism)

• Meetings become less productive (no one has mental bandwidth to think creatively)

And then there's the visible symptom: 59% of employees report feeling disengaged—a key sign of quiet quitting. People aren't leaving. They're just checking out mentally. They're doing their job, but they're not invested. They're not bringing their full selves to work.

For organizations, this is expensive. Information overload costs the U.S. economy at least $900 billion annually in lost productivity. That's not speculation. That's measured.

Missed deadlines increase. Quality issues increase. Customer satisfaction decreases. Turnover increases. And the deeper problem: company culture suffers. The organization becomes a place where people are just surviving, not thriving.

Why This Isn't About Personal Willpower (And Why That Matters)

Here's what I want to be really clear about: This is not a personal failing.

You might be thinking: "I just need a better productivity system. I need to be more disciplined. I need to wake up earlier, meditate more, optimize my calendar, use the Pomodoro technique, batch my tasks better."

And sure, some of those things help at the margins. They're not harmful. But they don't address the root problem.

The truth is: You can use the best planner in the world, and you'll still feel it. You can follow every productivity tip from every productivity guru, and the issue persists. Why? Because the structure of the work creates the problem. The tools create the problem. The culture creates the problem.

The myth of "just prioritize better" is particularly damaging. If priorities were clear upfront—if your leader said "These are the three things that matter this quarter, and everything else is secondary"—there would be significantly less decision fatigue. But in most organizations, priorities are unclear. They shift. They conflict. You get one message from your boss and another message from your boss's boss. You get competing requests from different stakeholders.

You can't "willpower" your way out of a system that requires 35,000 decisions per day.

Here's the deeper truth: Your brain isn't broken. It's being asked to do something humans aren't built to do. Our ancestors made maybe 50-100 conscious decisions a day. They lived in small tribes with clear social structures. Their environment was mostly stable. They weren't managing infinite information channels. They weren't responding to messages 24/7.

Your brain evolved for a different world. It's not that you lack discipline or intelligence or work ethic. It's that you're operating in an environment that conflicts with how human cognition actually works.

The real issue isn't your personal capacity. It's that the tools and workflow structure create unnecessary decisions. You can't meditation-hack your way out of this. You can't optimize your way out of this. You need to change the structure that's creating the problem.

What Happens If You Ignore It

Decision fatigue doesn't just make your workday harder. If you let it persist, it escalates.

Short-term Effects (Weeks to Months)

Your productivity nosedives despite working longer hours. You're putting in the effort, but it's not translating to output. The quality of your work suffers. That project you're proud of? You rush it. That presentation you usually polish? It's rough. Relationships at work deteriorate—you're short with people, less collaborative, less engaged.

Creativity vanishes. Your brain goes into survival mode. It's not thinking about innovation or improvements or clever solutions. It's just trying to get through the day.

Medium-term Effects (Months)

Burnout sets in. Not just tired, but spiritually depleted. You don't care anymore. The things that used to motivate you feel hollow. Health issues emerge—stress-related problems start showing up. Your doctor might mention that your cortisol levels are elevated. You start having trouble sleeping. You might catch colds more frequently (stress suppresses immune function).

You start considering quitting. Not because the job is hard, but because you're exhausted. Your confidence erodes. That voice telling you that you're not good enough? It's getting louder.

Long-term Effects (Beyond Six Months)

There's a real risk here. Chronic stress from decision fatigue leads to serious health issues: hypertension, anxiety disorders, and even heart problems. This isn't exaggeration. This is what stress science shows.

Your career stagnates. You're too burnt out to take on growth opportunities. Relationships suffer. You bring the fatigue home with you, and it affects your personal life. You're less present with family. You're irritable. You're exhausted.

And organizationally? Valuable people leave. Organizations lose the people who actually know how things work. The tribal knowledge walks out the door. The culture deteriorates further because the most engaged people are the first to leave.

The Path Forward

You've made it this far in the article, which means you either recognize yourself in these descriptions or you recognize your team. Here's what I want you to know: Recognition is the first step.

You're not broken. Your system is.

The fact that you're feeling exhausted doesn't mean you need to work harder. It means the system needs to change.

What does that change look like? That's the question we explore in the next article. Because here's the reality: Slack isn't going away. Digital communication isn't going away. Complexity in business isn't going away.

But the way you structure decisions? The way you track what's been decided? The way you clarify priorities so people don't have to guess?

That can change.

And when it does, everything shifts.

Learn more

In the next article, we dive into where decisions actually get lost in your current workflow and why Slack threads are the perfect place for important decisions to disappear. The Decision You Already Made (But Forgot)