This guest post is from Abigail Gulya, Metadata Librarian at University of Pittsburgh.
I make a lot of choices throughout the day. Some of them are pretty simple. Will I have coffee today? (Yes. Many times.) Some of them are a little more complex. I have three projects, and all of them are due immediately. Which do I start first? I make a lot of decisions with a lot of choices and a lot of impacts, but one thing remains the same.
I’m so tired.
Decision: I’m tired of being tired. I wanted to find a way to experience life without my brain feeling like a moldy sponge. I needed a change. In my case I was good at my job, but decision fatigue was using up all my focus. Decision fatigue is what happens when you are forced to make decisions for a long period of time. The basic idea is that each of those decisions takes up energy and focus and as humans we have a finite supply of that without rest. So, in theory, if I could remove all the excess decisions around my tasks throughout the day, I would end the workday with energy to spare.
Next Decision: Decide how to fix the cycle of exhaustion. I love organizing. I adore productivity tips and tricks. My YouTube feed is full of people extolling the virtues of the newest thing guaranteed to help put every aspect of life into nicely organized boxes. Unfortunately, I love it a little too much. Sometimes I get trapped in a cycle of trying the fancy new app or method thinking “Yes! This will solve all of my problems! I’ll just redo everything and it’ll be pretty and the prettiness will inspire me to be Superwoman!” Spoiler: pretty color-coding does not magically fix your library’s catalog issues.
Next Decision: Ignore the shiny baubles and focus on getting a system that works. First things first, I had to gather all the tasks/plans/half-developed thoughts I had. After digging through partial bullet journals, online trackers, note-taking apps and not-quite-sticky-anymore notes, I had a metaphorical mountain of stuff to do. Gross. Now what?
Next Decision: Determine how I work best. Instead of forcing myself into someone else’s method, respect my own personality and embrace that. Next, notice where it’s lacking. For me it was priorities and dates. I hate them. They stress me out. My tasks tended to only get a priority when it was super urgent (which was all the time) so it was like having no priority at all.
Next Decision: Actually apply priorities, and add start AND due dates to tasks. It was tedious and applying them to my task tower was a lot of effort. But it was worth it. Something wonderful happened. I’d start my day by opening my project management tool of choice (ClickUp™) and my “to do” list was nicely lined up for me in order of most to least importance. Tasks that took more than one day showed up on their start day and I knew exactly how long I had to finish them. I didn’t have to think and didn’t have to decide which was more important. That work had already been done, I just had to execute the task. When I had to create new tasks, I would quickly put in its priority level and dates, and then go on my way knowing it would show up on my list when needed.
Because I’m not spending all my time deciding what I should do next and weighing the pros and cons, I’m able to devote my energy on the tasks themselves. Which means they actually get completed. That gives me a sense of accomplishment, which makes me happy and therefore safely removed from moldy-sponge-brain status.
Taking care to reduce unnecessary decisions from my daily routines has become a form of emotional and mental self-care for me. I hope that anyone out there who may be experiencing decision fatigue without realizing it can find some help and encouragement from my story. Amelia Earhart once said, “The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.” I believe that most librarians are tenacious by nature of the job, so the Next Decision: is up to you.