Decision making is exhausting. What if I get other people to make them for me?

The opening line to this piece got way more complicated than I anticipated.

I wanted to quote a statistic on the number of decisions individuals make a day, so, of course, I googled it, and the number that came up was 35,000.

That seemed a bit high. I went a little further down the search results and there was a link to a discussion about that number. Hello Google rabbit hole, I’ve come to visit you. To summarize: The accuracy of that stat is contested; no one can find the source for it.

Still, even if it’s off by ten or twenty thousand, that’s a lot of decisions each day. Some are deliberate, others made almost by default. And then there’s the insecurity about the decisions!

I don’t know about you, but I find all the daily decision-making a little annoying; okay, make that overwhelming. I wondered if life would be easier if I would just do what other people told me to do.

So that’s what this Life Lab is — me crowdsourcing decisions for a week so I don’t have to think anymore.

How It Went Down

I created a WhatsApp chat by going through my contacts, adding around 35 people from a wide range of backgrounds. I didn’t want these decisions to be an echo-chamber consensus. I had people from my childhood, co-teachers, old students, old friends, new friends, people from my community.

I put in my mother and my mother-in-law after a moment’s hesitation (yes, I like to stir the pot, lightly). I also put in my sisters and sisters-in-law, so I had to make sure I kept the conversation away from certain topics that cut too close, like Should I call my sister back? She’s annoying me today, or more like Should I call my mother? (No!)

At the start of the chat there was discussion over the type of decisions the group would be allowed to make. My friend, who has three large (and beautiful) dogs, asked, “What if the kids asked for a dog? Did you pick this group carefully?”

I laughed because my kids would love to get a dog, but I have a strict no-pets rule (I don’t even allow carnival goldfish). It’s not in the realm of being a decision for me — it’s no. Just no. I also wasn’t going to ask things like should I quit my job? I’m not relying on the crowd for that, sorry.

Another common comment early on was, “I’m always happy to tell people what to do; it’s easier than making my own decisions.” It’s like there’s clarity when it comes to other people’s lives, but what’s right or wrong when it’s your own life is murky. That made me wonder if we all overthink our own lives, or is it that others just don’t appreciate the variables at stake?

The first decision outsourced: Car pool. Should I show up to car pool early, wait on line a little bit, and get the kids as soon as school ends, or should I show up to car pool late so I don’t have to wait on line, even though that means the kids will have to wait for me?