Understanding Decision Fatigue

You start the day with a full tank of decision-making capacity. Every choice you make, from what to wear to what to eat to how to respond to that email, drains some of it. By evening, you're running on empty. This is decision fatigue, and it explains why you have less patience at home than at work, why evening is when you're most likely to lose your temper or make poor choices.

Understanding decision fatigue helps you manage it. You can protect your capacity for the decisions that matter most.

How It Shows Up

• Poor decisions later in the day
• Giving in to temptation at night when you resisted all day
• Short patience with family in the evening
• Decision avoidance or paralysis
• Defaulting to the easiest option instead of the best one

You're not a worse husband in the evening because you care less. You're depleted because you've been making decisions all day. Understanding this isn't an excuse; it's information for building a better system.

Managing Decision Fatigue

Reduce trivial decisions: Routinize things that don't matter. Same breakfast, limited wardrobe choices, automated systems.

Make important decisions early: Save your best mental energy for what matters most.

Front-load family time: If possible, engage with family when you have capacity, not just at day's end.

Build habits: Habits don't require decision-making. The more you automate through habit, the more capacity you preserve.

Protect transitions: Give yourself time to recharge between work and home.

For Your Marriage

Your wife often gets the worst of you because she gets the last of you. Recognizing this lets you plan for it. Maybe you need 20 minutes of transition time before engaging at home. Maybe important conversations should happen in the morning, not at night. Work with the reality of how your brain operates.

Your Action Steps

This week: Notice when decision fatigue hits. What time of day? What triggers it?

This month: Reduce trivial decisions. Routinize what doesn't matter.

This quarter: Restructure your day to protect capacity for what matters most.