Focus Problems Are Usually Decision Problems

You sit down to work and immediately feel stuck. Not because the work is hard—you know how to do it. But you can’t decide where to start. Open email first? Jump into the project? Check Slack? Review yesterday’s work? Twenty minutes pass and you’ve done nothing because you’re paralyzed by options.

You assume this is a focus problem. But you haven’t tried to focus yet—you can’t even get to the focusing part because you’re trapped in the decision layer.

The problem isn’t that you can’t concentrate—it’s that you’re depleting your concentration capacity by making endless decisions about what to concentrate on, leaving nothing left for actual focus.

The Problem

Your day is an endless stream of decision points. You finish one task and immediately face a choice: what next? You get interrupted and have to decide: handle this now or later? You open your task list and see 23 items. Which one matters most? Which is most urgent? Which will take the least time? Which do you feel like doing?

Each of these feels like a small decision. Trivial even. But research suggests that decision-making depletes the same cognitive resources you need for focus. By the time you’ve made 15 decisions about what to work on, you’ve exhausted the mental energy you need to actually do the work.

What makes this worse is that most of these decisions are recurring. You don’t decide once what to work on—you decide every 30 minutes when something interrupts or you finish a task. You’re making the same category of decision 20-30 times per day, each time burning cognitive capacity.

Meanwhile, you watch colleagues who seem less capable but more productive. They’re not better at focusing—they’ve eliminated the decision layer. They know what they’re working on before they sit down. They’re not more disciplined—they’re making fewer decisions.

Why this happens to thoughtful people

Many people find that the more conscientious you are about doing the right work, the more decision fatigue you create. You want to make good choices about priorities, so you carefully evaluate options every time. You’re not being lazy—you’re being thorough.

But thoroughness about what to work on depletes the capacity you need to work well. You spend 20 minutes deciding which task to tackle, then have degraded focus for actually tackling it. The decision process consumed the resource you needed for execution.

Research suggests that successful people often aren’t better decision-makers—they’ve structured their lives to require fewer decisions. They have routines that eliminate daily choices. They have rules that automatically answer recurring questions. They’ve pre-decided everything that can be pre-decided.

What you don’t realize is that every time you choose what to focus on, you’re using the same mental resources you need for the focusing itself. The choice isn’t free. It has a real cost that compounds throughout your day.

What Most People Try

The most common approach is better prioritization: make a ranked task list, label things by urgency and importance, use a productivity system. The assumption is that better prioritization will make decisions easier.

But many people find that better prioritization just adds more decision-making. Now you’re not just choosing tasks—you’re evaluating them against frameworks, assigning categories, adjusting priorities. You’ve added a meta-layer of decisions about decisions.

Then there’s the “just start” advice: stop deliberating and pick something. Anything. Build momentum through action rather than through planning.

This sometimes works, but many people find they start the wrong thing, realize it midway through, then have to decide whether to continue or switch. Now they’ve made three decisions instead of one, plus they’ve wasted time on work that didn’t matter.

Some try to time-block everything: pre-schedule all work so there’s no decision in the moment. But many people find that schedules rarely survive contact with reality. Interruptions happen, tasks take longer than expected, priorities shift. Now you’re constantly deciding whether to stick to the schedule or adapt to reality.

Others try to reduce their task list to make decisions easier. Fewer options means easier choices. But many people find that the tasks that remain still require constant decisions about sequence, timing, and approach.

The fundamental issue with all these approaches is they’re trying to make decisions easier or better, when the real solution is to eliminate as many decisions as possible.

What Actually Helps

1. Pre-decide your work sequence, not just your work

Right now, you probably plan what you need to do but not when or in what order you’ll do it. This means every transition point requires a fresh decision.

The shift is pre-deciding the sequence so each completed task automatically leads to the next one without requiring a new decision.

Many people find that this single change—knowing exactly what comes next—eliminates 80% of their focus problems. They’re not distracted or unable to concentrate. They just don’t have to spend energy deciding what to concentrate on.

Here’s how to start: At the end of each day or start of each morning, write down not just what you’ll do, but the exact sequence. Not “work on project A, respond to emails, call client” but “1. Project A. 2. Emails. 3. Client call.”

The sequence should be specific enough that when you finish item 1, you immediately know to start item 2. No evaluation, no reconsideration, no decision. The decision was made yesterday. Today you just execute.

This feels rigid at first—what if priorities change? They will. But many people find that even when they deviate from the sequence, having a default plan eliminates 90% of decision points. You’re only deciding when something genuinely urgent emerges, not every 30 minutes by default.

2. Create decision rules for recurring choices

You probably make the same types of decisions repeatedly: Should I check email now or later? Should I take this call or let it go to voicemail? Should I start the big project or handle small tasks first?

Each time these situations arise, you decide from scratch. This feels like thoughtful, responsive work. But it’s decision fatigue disguised as productivity.

The shift is creating rules that automatically answer these recurring questions so you stop making the same decision over and over.

Research suggests that decision rules—pre-made decisions that apply to categories of situations—preserve cognitive capacity far better than case-by-case decision-making, even when the rules occasionally produce suboptimal choices.

Here’s what this looks like in practice: Identify the decisions you make repeatedly throughout the day. For each one, create a rule that removes the decision.

“When should I check email?” → Rule: “Email at 10am, 2pm, 4pm only. Never between these times.”

“Should I take this interruption?” → Rule: “If I’m in a focus block, everything goes to a list to handle later. No exceptions.”

“What should I work on when I finish a task?” → Rule: “Follow the pre-decided sequence. If I finish early, start tomorrow’s first task.”

The rules don’t have to be perfect—they just have to be automatic. A good-enough rule that requires no decision beats optimal decision-making that depletes you. You’re not becoming robotic—you’re preserving cognitive capacity for work that actually requires thinking.

3. Separate deciding time from doing time

Right now, you probably mix deciding and doing throughout the day. Decide what to work on, work on it, finish, decide what’s next, work on that. The constant switching between decision mode and execution mode is exhausting.

The shift is batching all decisions into a dedicated time, then executing without deciding for the rest of the day.

Many people find that 15 minutes of focused decision-making in the morning eliminates hours of decision fatigue during the day. You’re not making fewer decisions—you’re making them all at once when you’re fresh, then executing for the rest of the day without burning decision capacity.

Here’s how to start: Designate the first 15 minutes of your workday as decision time. During this window, you make every decision you can about the day: what you’ll work on, in what order, what you’ll defer, what you’ll decline, when you’ll take breaks.

Write it all down. Be specific. The goal is that for the rest of the day, you’re following the plan, not making new plans.

During execution time—the rest of the day—you don’t decide. You execute the plan. If something unexpected comes up, add it to a list but don’t decide about it now. That decision happens tomorrow morning during decision time.

This feels uncomfortable because you’re not being responsive to emerging priorities. But many people find that very little is genuinely so urgent it can’t wait until tomorrow’s decision window. And the focus quality you gain by not constantly context-switching between deciding and doing is worth the occasional suboptimal choice.

The Takeaway

Most focus problems aren’t about concentration—they’re about decision fatigue from constantly choosing what to concentrate on. Every time you decide what to work on next, you deplete the cognitive capacity you need to actually do the work. Pre-decide your work sequence so each task flows into the next, create decision rules that automatically answer recurring questions, and separate deciding time from doing time. You’re not avoiding decisions—you’re batching them into a single session so the rest of your day can be spent doing instead of deliberating. Focus improves not because you got better at concentrating, but because you stopped burning concentration capacity on decisions.