There is one invisible routine that does more to make people appear drained than lack of sleep or bad posture. I have watched it in offices breakfast tables and on trains. It creeps up slowly and then it is the most obvious thing about someone the way a watermark is obvious once you know to look. This piece is a blend of irritation and affection. I want you to see it in yourself and in others and to admit how small choices pile up until a face reads tired even when the person slept eight hours.
What I mean when I say habit
When I use the word habit I do not mean an isolated action. I mean an assemblage of tiny decisions that together shape how a mind arrives at the day. It is not about catastrophic errors or dramatic collapse. It is a persistent low level of cognitive friction. The habit is constant micro deciding. Choosing on autopilot about everything from what to check first to how to answer a message and which minor battle to take seriously or ignore. Over time the habit of micro deciding rewires attention into a fragile mode.
The habit that makes people seem mentally exhausted all the time
The phrase was long and clunky when I first tried to name it. Then I settled on a cleaner formulation. The habit that makes people seem mentally exhausted all day is the relentless performing of trivial choices without pauses. It is not decision making in the noble sense. It is decision wandering. When a person keeps reactivating choice processes for small matters it steals the cognitive currency needed for presence and curiosity. Look at two colleagues in a meeting. One looks animated and decisive. The other looks thinly sketched as if someone removed color from their face. The difference is how they spend their spare attention before they get to the room.
A pattern, not a catastrophe
Hands hover over phones as if a notification might combust at any second. Menus are scrolled through and abandoned. People mentally reweigh the pros and cons of inconsequential alternatives like they are preparing for a tribunal. These micro indecisions pile like unpaid tickets on a dashboard. They are not dramatic. They are repetitive and therefore exhausting in a way a single intense day is not. The result is a soft ongoing depletion that shows on the face and in the words that come out.
Depleted people become more passive which becomes bad for their decision making.
Roy Baumeister professor of psychology at Florida State University and author of Willpower Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength.
I give that quote here not to hide behind authority but because it nails the experience. The slow erosion of will and engagement is not a moral failing. It is a predictable consequence of using attention where it is least productive.
Why this habit looks like mental exhaustion
Mental exhaustion has signatures. Sparse affect. Slower word retrieval. A tendency to default to the simplest response even if it is not the best. The constant micro deciding compresses available working memory. You have less room to hold new information which makes you seem distracted. You have less ability to regulate tone which makes you seem brittle. You have less inclination to ask clarifying questions which makes you seem checked out.
Surface symptoms and deeper mechanics
Those who practice the habit report feeling scattered rather than tired. They will say they are fine but that conversations feel like wading through treacle. The surface is not sleepy eyes alone. The deeper mechanics are about allocation. The brain is a resource allocator. If you command it to spread tiny allocations across a thousand small tasks you will wake up every afternoon as if you had run a marathon you did not sign up for.
How the habit forms and why it is sticky
It often starts as efficient multitasking. You convince yourself you are being supple adaptable modern. You can have your email on while on a call and browse an article while answering a text. For a while that feels clever. The trap is that the brain rewards novelty and the small hits of choosing keep the reward circuit lit. Continuously choosing small matters becomes a low grade stimulant. Breaks are short and rare. The mind learns to prefer quick cheap choices to sustained thought. Over months the default becomes shallow engagement.
I am not arguing for austerity. I do not think every choice should be outsourced to a rigid routine. But there is a difference between intentional simplification and accidental surrender. Many people surrender without noticing they did.
A warning about common remedies
People will tell you to wear simpler clothes set rules or declutter. Those things help but they are cosmetic if the underlying pattern of micro deciding remains. You can have a minimalist wardrobe and still spend your commute choosing which trivial email to reply to and why that is more urgent than talking to your partner. The trick is not just to reduce choices. The trick is to change the way you orient to choice so that not every small thing solicits a decision.
Not everything needs to be handled now
There is an emotional architecture behind the habit. Many of the choices we constantly perform are attempts to avoid an uncomfortable feeling. Deciding becomes a shield against boredom or worry. If you treat the habit only as logistics you will miss the emotional current that keeps it in place.
What I have tried and what I learned
I removed certain categories of choice from my day and kept others deliberately. Nightly routines became declarative. I still made some choices in the morning but those were meaningful choices about priority not endless small gambits. I learned that small rituals that do not demand judgment can replace mini decisions. Making a cup of tea without scanning a phone is a small act but it functions like a circuit breaker. It interrupts the chain of micro deciding and lets the brain resettle.
There was resistance at first. The brain complained as if deprived. Then something odd happened. Energy returned to the parts of conversation that matter. Faces lit in ways they had not in months. It was not miraculous. It was incremental and stubborn and real.
Open ended thoughts
There is no single solution. Engines of modern life encourage the habit. Workplaces reward immediacy. Social media trains people to respond reflexively. We must choose where to fight and where to accept. I do not know if society will change fast enough to make this irrelevant. For now making small deliberate choices about attention seems the only practical rebellion against a world that profits from our scattered focus.
Summary table
| Idea | Essence |
|---|---|
| The habit | Relentless micro deciding across trivial matters. |
| Why it looks like exhaustion | Cognitive resource depletion that reduces engagement regulation and curiosity. |
| How it forms | Reward from small decisions and avoidance of discomfort create sticky cycles. |
| Why simple fixes can fail | Cosmetic changes ignore the emotional drivers and default orientation to choice. |
| Modest interventions | Reduce decision categories create nonjudgmental rituals and reserve willpower for important decisions. |
Frequently asked questions
How can I tell if I have this habit rather than just being tired
Notice patterns across days rather than single events. If you feel mentally thin most afternoons but regain energy during a weekend hobby that is a clue. Pay attention to how many small judgments you perform before your main task. If you are constantly switching between trivial choices and work you may be entrenching the habit. Look for the difference between physical sleepiness and a sense of depleted interest in small details. The first responds more obviously to sleep the second often persists.
Is this the same as being overwhelmed
They overlap but are not identical. Being overwhelmed tends to be emotional and tied to volume and urgency of tasks. The habit of micro deciding is subtler and can exist absent a clear overload. It is the slow burn of habitual choice that reduces capacity. You can be overwhelmed without this habit and you can have the habit while appearing organized on the surface.
Will simplifying my environment always help
Simplifying items and routines can reduce the friction of trivial choices but only if you also alter the mental orientation that prompts constant deciding. If simplification becomes another arena of micro deciding it will not help. The goal is to create conditions where fewer things require judgment rather than simply fewer objects or options.
How should I prioritise decisions during the day
Think in terms of conserved cognitive currency. Use the morning for decisions that need creativity or empathy. Reserve later hours for execution or low consequence tasks. Build short rituals that reset attention. The exact pattern will differ from person to person but the guiding idea is to allocate harder decisions to times when you are least depleted.
Can workplaces change to reduce this effect
Yes but change is slow and uneven. Workplaces can reduce unnecessary meeting noise discourage instant response culture and create clearer decision protocols. These shifts require leadership to value sustained attention over constant reactivity. Some organisations already acknowledge this and set norms about response times and meeting design. Such changes alter the ambient incentives that produce the habit.
