How time of day affects decisions

The decisions you make at the end of your day are likely to differ from those you make earlier on.

Even if you are a highly trained doctor.

That’s what researchers discovered when they tracked 204 doctors over 17 months and 21,867 visits.

As the day wore on, the doctors prescribed more unnecessary antibiotics. 5% more, in fact.

👉 Decision fatigue has a bearing on the types of decisions we make.

While researchers have different theories on why and to what extent, as a general rule people are prone to do less ‘heavy thinking’ when they are tired.

So, when I received this email from an accounts department at 5pm on a Friday, requesting I update my records, you can imagine how excited I was.

 There’s a lot wrong with this email, but the main issue was its timing. 

In their rush to get this task off their to-do list for the week, they not only reduced the email’s effectiveness, they soured the relationship by shifting the burden to their customers.

👉👉 If you want someone to do something effortful, time your request so they are more likely to have the energy to bother. 

Your odds of them ignoring what you share will increase the more depleted they feel.

Timing is one thing to influence action, but there's so much more.

Ref: Linder JA, Doctor JN, Friedberg MW, Reyes Nieva H, Birks C, Meeker D, Fox CR. Time of day and the decision to prescribe antibiotics. JAMA Intern Med. 2014 Dec;174(12):2029-31. doi: 10.1001/jamainternmed.2014.5225. PMID: 25286067; PMCID: PMC4648561.