You’ve probably heard of Writer’s Block. Burnout. Imposter Syndrome. Rejection Sensitivity. Anxiety. Perfectionism. Fear of Failure. All are bugbears that most writers have to deal with at some point in their career. And ones which are frequently discussed in writers’ groups, forums, and newsletters.
But one bugbear that doesn’t get talked about too often is decision fatigue.
Decision fatigue is when you are faced with so many decisions, you begin to experience difficulty in making the “right” decision each time you face another. This topic is often discussed by parents (particularly mothers) but I think it is particularly challenging for writers, and we don’t even realize it’s happening much of the time.
Decision making for a writer starts at ideation. What idea is the “right” idea? What story should I focus on? What book should I write? Where do I begin?
Once you’ve made that decision, then the next questions arise. What point of view? Past or present tense? What’s the first scene? What genre is this? Who is my character? What happens next?
And this spirals into a series of ongoing decisions: where to end chapters, what chapter hooks should be, what new characters should be included, what world building details are relevant, word choice, rhetorical devices, tension, plot twists, adjectives, adverbs, punctuation—and I haven’t even gotten into the rest of it. Pantser, plotter, or plantser? To publish or not to publish? Marketing? Business? Launch strategies? Workshops? Conferences? Time management? Need I say more?
Decision fatigue can lead to writer’s block, imposter syndrome, and anxiety, to name a few of the other bugbears I listed before. The more fatigued your decision-making machine feels, the more the quality of the decisions you make will decrease. You will become more likely to make the easy choice instead of the best choice. You may act impulsively. Or avoid decision making altogether.
And this decision fatigue can spread out into the rest of life as well. If you’ve used up all your decision-making tokens on your writing, then making choices about food, exercise, family time, money spending, and everything else in life will become that much more difficult.
I suppose I should offer you some strategies for dealing with this, as opposed to just pointing out the problem. I will, but first I want to say that these strategies are super generalized, and what works for you might be very specific.
For example, I take weeks off writing, build up a bunch of steam, and then use up every last ounce of juice I’ve got in me all at once. That’s not a strategy that is probably going to work for most people. So if the generalized strategies I’ve described here don’t help, never fear. There are thousands of additional strategies you could use, and if you want help brainstorming, let me know.
Bludgeoning the Bugbear
Build routines. Yeah, yeah, everyone is always saying that. But routines help with so much! Now, I would like to point out here that routines don’t have to be daily like most people say. You can have weekly or monthly routines. You can have annual routines. You can have trigger routines, which are just routines that are triggered by a specific event. So for example, every time you sit down to write, maybe you pour a cup of tea, then light a candle, then meditate for five minutes, then write. It might not be every day, but it’s still a routine.
Pick different measures. You don’t have to write five thousand words every time you sit down to write. We calculate writing progress by words a lot, but sometimes it’s better to measure by scene or by time or by page. “I sat at my desk for thirty minutes.” Check. Do it again in three days. If 1k words equals 1k decisions, then maybe some days you only have 200 decisions to give. So don’t judge yourself by word count. Pick something else—or better yet, don’t judge yourself at all. Just do what you can.
Prioritize decisions. What are the most important decisions you have to make each day? Make those first. If it’s dinner, decide what you’re going to cook right when you get up in the morning. If it’s which project you’re going to work on today, decide that early. Whatever decisions are most important, make those first, or at whatever point you have the maximum decision-making energy during the day. You can even make the decisions the night before for some things. Like plan out your meals for the whole week. Or plan out what you’re going to use your writing time for on the first day of your work week.
Use templates, checklists, and other organizational tools. These are so helpful. I make myself templates all the time. I have a Distribution Checklist for each time I publish. I don’t have to remember; I don’t have to decide. If it’s time to publish, I pull out my checklist and just go down the list. No decisions necessary. I have editing checklists, marketing spreadsheets, to-do lists. Whatever tools help take decisions out of your hands, find them, customize them, build them, and use them.
Take breaks. Long breaks, short breaks, breaks that are just right. Stop early, even if you think you could do more that day. In my opinion, keeping some decision-making fuel in the tank is the key to maintaining a work-life balance. If you’re giving everything to work or to life, that’s not balance. But if you keep some in your reserve tank, then you can use it when you need it. But this requires a bit of self-awareness. You could also stop when you’re at a good stopping place. Stop when you notice your mind wandering. Stop at a specific time. Take days or weeks off from writing or editing and come back to your project later. However you want to do it, breaks are key to both preventing and recovering from decision fatigue.
There are many other strategies you can use. For example, setting deadlines for when you have to make a decision by. Working to reduce tendencies toward perfectionism. Using prompts, timed work sessions, or the pomodoro technique. Delegating decisions whenever you can. Meditation. Self-care.
Most of all, I recommend learning what decision fatigue feels like. Of course, the biggest symptom is indecisiveness, especially when making decisions that should be simple, but you might also experience low motivation, increased anxiety, mental exhaustion or brain fog, writer’s block, impulsivity, flare ups of imposter syndrome, irritability, reduced willpower, or decreased focus.
Once you start to recognize the signs, you can take steps to mitigate and repair much more quickly—and even prevent it in the future.
Click here to get these letters delivered directly to your inbox!
