Decision Fatigue and Dirty Shirts
I learned about decision fatigue in high school and related deeply to the concept. There was a pervading sense of being constantly overwhelmed with different, but arguably viable, paths to follow. What do you want to study in college? Who are you going to ask to prom? What do you want for lunch? Trying to choose something from the phonebook sized menu at The Cheesecake Factory caused mental paralysis.
I still feel this way. My day job is running the finance function for a rapidly growing software company. My night job is also running the finance function for a rapidly growing software company. As an early employee I have a lot of context than the newer team does not, and my duties have bled into various other departments and efforts within the org. Exposure and responsibility lead to decision-making and judgement. The wider your exposure and responsibility, the greater need for prompt and varied decisions. Something is always broken, someone always wants your opinion, and sometimes you’re going to get worn out by the daily…hourly…or even slack-ping-constant decisions that come with the territory.
100 days ago I removed one of those decisions from routine. It just happened to be a decision that I made every day, and it was also one of the first decisions I made every morning. What shirt am I going to wear? Rather than sort through my closet or dresser for an appropriate t shirt, polo, or button down, I just started wearing the same shirt every. single. day. Not the same style, not the same color. Literally the same exact shirt every day for 100 days.
I didn’t decide to do this on my own. I was partially brainwashed by an effective advertising campaign for the clothing brand Wool & Prince. The ad challenged people to wear their merino wool shirts for 100 consecutive days without washing them and it immediately grabbed my attention. Won’t it stink? Won’t it fall apart? Won’t people notice? The answer to all these questions is (surprisingly) no!
The 100 day challenge wasn’t the sole reason for buying the shirt. I thought it looked really good and I wanted a high quality oxford to add to my rotation. The challenge was enough of a gimmick to push me over the edge, plus the reward of a free shirt for successfully completing the 100 days. I settled on a color and a fabric weight (the 210 merino wool seemed the most versatile to me) and kicked off my journey.
Every morning I knew exactly what to expect. I’d wake up, go for a run or just shower, and then I’d put on my green shirt. It coordinated with pretty much all of my pants, but I’d often wear the same pants for most of a week as well. The combination of working from home and the tail end of a global pandemic made some of this easier than it may have been otherwise, but I really appreciated how easy my routine had become. Most of my family and coworkers knew that I was doing this, but they almost universally thought it was the stupidest thing they had ever heard.
Won’t it stink? No! The merino wool is naturally antimicrobial, and while I wouldn’t say that it smells like a bed of roses, it doesn’t reek. It’s fairly neutral. I always wore an undershirt with it, and there were days where I didn’t wear it all 16 waking hours. For example, I didn’t exercise in the shirt. I didn’t mow my lawn in the shirt. If I was eating spaghetti with red sauce I’d change into something less risky. To the point though, I never noticed an odor and I had other trusted people sniff me periodically as well. I even spent some time with coworkers during a leadership offsite for days 91 to 93 and no one complained. It held up.
Won’t it fall apart? No! I had a couple of unfortunate (but small) food spills during the 100 days, but a bit of spot cleaning helped triage the issue. Beyond that, the shirt was incredibly wrinkle resistance and maintained a great drape throughout the entire challenge. I received a lot of compliments from random people about the shirt (the color, the fit, etc.), and I loved telling them that it was the 75th consecutive day that I had worn it. It looks fantastic.
Won’t people notice? Well, they definitely notice if you tell them. If not, then people don’t. We think that people care about our appearance much more than they actually do. While I received many compliments about the shirt, I never had a coworker or other acquaintance confront me about constantly wearing the same thing. I think that the reality of life is that people either don’t pay attention to other people’s wardrobes, or they just don’t care. The people who knew about the challenge would tease me, but that was the extent.
Did eliminating this one decision change my life dramatically? No. But, I learned that if I invest in some high quality wool clothing I can simplify my laundry routine quite a bit. I also found a brand of shirts that fit me really well. If I’m going to project the concept onto other areas of my life, I could stretch and say that simplifying and automating simple decisions can have a material impact on people. It makes me think about organizing templates for expense reports, narrowing the choices available when asking people for information, and creating space for people to just work and operate without making a series of interrupting decisions. Or, maybe I’ll just start buying people wool shirts as birthday and Christmas gifts.
