Smart Ways to Fight "Decision Fatigue"

I was excited to read the recent New York Times Magazine article about  "decision fatigue," which looks at the research behind the discovery that the sheer number of decisions we make can deplete our ability to make good ones.

There are, to use the scientific term, takeaways galore for the meetings industry.

Here are just a few:

Offer choices in meeting sessions and experiences wisely. One of the researchers mentioned in the story, Convening Leaders 2011 speaker Sheena Iyengar, talked last year with Convene about how exhausting making choices can be. What that means for conference organizers: Don't overwhelm attendees a long list of choices, she advised.  Rather, divide choices into categories and then limit choices in each category. (Here's a link to the article.)

Conserve attendees' mental energy for important decisions. Attendees shouldn't be asked to fritter away their brainpower in wondering which hallway might take them to a session, or which  building entrance they should use. It's a no-brainer to provide good signage, clear, easy-to-use communications, and lots of friendly assistance

Pay attention to the care and feeding of attendees' brains. One fascinating passage was about the recent discovery that a quick hit of glucose can restore a tired brain's ability to make good decisions. That might make it sound like a late-afternoon cookie is a good idea, but a shot of sugar, researchers say, is not as useful to our brain as giving it stable amounts of glucose over the course of a day with protein and other nutritious foods.

Luckily, Andrea Sullivan of BrainStrength Systems is ahead of the curve on advising meeting planners on how they can support attendee experience through food. She is the coauthor of a white paper that addresses the intersection of performance and food at meetings, published by the The National Conference Center.

There's sure to be many more lessons here that I haven't mentioned -- MeetingsNet Web Editor Sue Pelletier shared some of her insights about the story in a recent blog post.

And I hope you will do the same.

Your Very Own Google Perk

Life seems pretty sweet at the Googleplex in Mountain View, where -- as Google's website explains -- employees travel between meetings on scooters, and dogs, lava lamps, massage chairs, yoga classes, and ping pong tables abound. Maybe we can't all eat at the company cafeteria, but here's one perk that Google shares with everyone: possibly the greatest online book club on the planet.

Authors@Google features a collection of authors who are invited to Googleplex to read from their work, and discuss it with Google employees. The speakers are stunningly diverse -- from How to Survive a Robot Uprising by Daniel Wilson, to Getting the Pretty Back: Friendship, Family, and Finding the Perfect Lipstick by Molly Ringwald. (Yes, that Molly Ringwald.)

As someone fascinated by developmental molecular biologist Dr. John Medina's book Brain Rules, I was happy to see that Medina spoke at Google two years ago when his book was first published. His hour-long talk is captivating -- while declaring that "We don't really know squat about the brain," Medina nevertheless illuminates how a variety of factors, including stress, nutrition, and sleep, have immediate and measurable effects on cognition.

We talked with Medina's publishing partner, Mark Pearson, about Medina's research for the July cover story "More Than Feeling." If you'd like to know more about how your brain works -- or how to best insure our children make the most of their cognitive capabilities -- tune in here.