B2 – Upper Intermediate
Every single thing our bodies do — be it physical or mental— requires energy. We might not notice it, but making decisions, even if it is as simple as what to eat, what to wear, etc., takes up a lot of our energy. Imagine how much more exhausted our brains get when are constantly faced with complex matters that need our deciding prowess.
Based on numerous research, some people tend to have a “daily threshold for making decisions”. Very long periods of time of making decisions can cause us to suffer from cognitive exhaustion or decision fatigue.
Watch the video to know more about decision fatigue and learn some ways on how to avoid it.
Vocabulary Questions:
- What does it mean for “to meet the threshold“? “Once that threshold is met, most people make the conscious choice to “take it easy” and save serious thinking about any new decisions for another day.” Use this expression in your own sentence.
- What does “to save something for another day” mean? “Once that threshold is met, most people make the conscious choice to “take it easy” and save serious thinking about any new decisions for another day.” Use this idiom in your own sentence.
- What does the adjective “taxing” mean here, “For example, choosing what to eat for breakfast isn’t very taxing.”? Give two synonyms or similar expressions and make a sentence using ‘taxing’.
Discussion Questions:
- “Individuals have a daily threshold for decision-making.” In your opinion or personal experience, when is it the best time to just choose to “take it easy” and why so? In other words, what is your decision-making threshold?
- What is your process when it comes to decision-making?
- What factors affect your decisions, whether minor or big ones?
- What are ways we can avoid decision fatigue?
- Share your thoughts on this: “Many researchers are especially concerned about decision fatigue in medicine.”.
4 replies on “Make Smart Decisions More Easily”
1. I do not have the same threshold for decision-making every day. It depends on many factors such as how bad I have slept at night or if I have needed to work on complex activities along the day. On a normal day, my threshold for decision-making is around 17:00 but there have been some occasions that I have woken up in the morning uncapable of making any decision because I could not concentrate on anything.
2. When I have to make a major decision in life, I usually take my time because I prefer to think about the possible consequences of my decisions. Also, I like to consult with my family mainly if some of the decisions can affect them.
3. There will be different factors depending on each moment. At work the main factors I look for in a company are stability or conciliation with my private life. At the market, the factors to make decisions will be the quality and price of the products. In my personal life, the most important factor is to stay with my family in good terms.
4. I suppose that some tips to avoid decision fatigue can be to exchange complicated topics with others that do not require concentration or take a break after some exhausting tasks.
5. I understand that fatigue in medicine is a very worrying topic since a bad decision can cost people’s lives. The problem is that the doctors are understaffing and they need to attend more people than they can.
You are getting better and better at your expressing your thoughts in writing.
See how the following sentences can be written using more accurate expressions:
Keep going at this activity to improve more and more.
1. Reaching the threshold of success in your job, sometimes requires loosing a part of your health.
2. That means not spending more time that day thinking about heavy decisions. It seems to be better to wait until the next day to do it again. 2.1 After a hard day of work, I felt I have reached my threshold of decisions for that day, and I decided saving whatever kind of serius thinkings for the next day.
3. Two synonyms for taxing could be hard or demanding. An expression using taxing could be: Running one kilometer in less than three minutes is not very taxing for Cristiano Ronaldo.
Welcome to the Phone English blog! Hope you can continue with this writing activity to have a way to practice consistently.
See how you can revise this sentence to make it better:
Cheers to more entries from you!