The Workplace Chameleon with Dr. Celina
This podcast is about the changing organization and our relationship to it -- how we enter, thrive and exit. Each episode is meant to be thoughtful, funny, and applicable. Stories, insight, and "words to say" come from Dr. Celina's experience with over two and a half decades of listening, learning from and leading conversations in hundreds of companies. Each episode will explore a new theme about life arriving in, interacting with and leaving the workplace.
The Workplace Chameleon with Dr. Celina
Episode 85: Decision Fatigue & Chicken Pill
In this episode of The Workplace Chameleon, Dr. Celina Peerman tackles the hidden toll of decision fatigue—and what it’s really costing leaders.
From the “chicken pill” codeword that saved dinner debates to the daily drag of micro-decisions, this episode explores how mental overload, misalignment, and too many unclear expectations quietly wear us down. You’ll learn how decision fatigue shows up, why it’s not just about being busy, and what to do when even the simple stuff feels hard.
Dr. Celina shares three strategies to help reduce fatigue, restore clarity, and protect your energy—so you can make better decisions not just for yourself, but for everyone around you.
This episode is part of our ongoing season on focus, prioritization, and alignment—key themes from Celina’s upcoming book 39 Squirrels, the third in her leadership reflection series.
Dr. Celina Peerman is an organizational psychologist, speaker, and author with 30 years of experience helping leaders navigate change, develop stronger teams, and lead with more intention. Known for her humor, heart, and practical tools, she brings real-world insight to the daily work of leadership.
Want the bonus worksheet to help identify where decision fatigue might be hiding in your day-to-day? Email us at hello@workplacechameleon.com and we’ll send it your way.
Because leadership clarity isn’t about doing more—it’s about making aligned choices that matter most.
Welcome to the Workplace Chameleon. I'm Dr Selina, and this is where we explore a little more into how to adapt, align and lead through constant change without losing yourself in the process. This season, we're digging into what it really takes to focus, prioritize what matters and lead with intention when everything feels urgent. This is the third in a 12-episode sprint focused on three themes focus itself, priorities and alignment. We're also excited to share with you that those are the three themes in my upcoming book, 39 Swirls. This is the third book in a series that will be out soon. The first two, 49 Chameleons and 29 Owls, are now available on our website and by contacting our team. We're excited to tell you more about those, so reach out if you'd like to talk and other than a short definition, about the amazing work chameleon cells do to reflect the light around them.
Speaker 1:There's really nothing about animals in these books. They're not children's books. They're about leading and navigating change together in this organizational life. So what could we work on today? Decision fatigue. Have you ever opened up the fridge, stared inside and just couldn't make a decision? It's not usually about the food. Sometimes it's just your brain is done. Decision fatigue at that moment has entered the conversation In my own life.
Speaker 1:This became apparent early in my marriage to David, where we would just hit the end of the day and neither one of us or one of us at a time had nothing left in the tank to make a decision. It started. We were young professionals in our field, trying to navigate the world of work, and when one of us came home and asked the other one so what do you want for dinner? We coined the key phrase chicken pill. Now, that might sound completely ridiculous to you and after 32 years it still sounds ridiculous to us, but it's really become a code word for I'm done, like I have no decisions left in me, and it symbolized the I don't care what I eat right now. Like just give me a pill so I don't have to think about it. I don't care what I eat right now Like, just give me a pill so I don't have to think about it. Whatever, that is for you when you just hit done.
Speaker 1:Today we're digging into this very real mental overload and how small misalignments in our daily lives actually quietly wear us down in our daily lives actually quietly wear us down, because it's not always the big, significant moments that burn us out. Sometimes it's the constant, quiet pressure of decisions that just don't quite align with who we are, what we want or what we thought we were prioritizing. Decision fatigue happens when the quality of our decisions deteriorates after a long day or even an hour of decision making. It's not just a time management issue, it's cognitive overload. Cognition is this process of knowing, thinking, deciding that our brain overtakes and your brain, just like your body, gets tired. In the last few months we have had more requests for content around mental clutter, and I think that's absolutely tied into this wider conversation around decision fatigue and cognitive overload. Because there's just so much stuff in there we have to sort through the muck and that's a heavy lift. We have to clear through all this noise just to get to a core decision.
Speaker 1:And in leadership roles we don't just make decisions for ourselves, right, we're influencing others, coordinating across departments, weighing multiple outcomes, and often do it with incomplete information. Multiple outcomes and often do it with incomplete information. So what wears us down isn't always how many decisions we make. It's how many unclear, misaligned decisions we have to navigate. Let me give you an example. You've told your team that prioritizing client satisfaction is key. Client, customer, member, whoever that is for you. You've told your team that prioritizing client satisfaction is key, but we also know that senior leadership expects cost savings and now there's a deadline that's just moved up again. So now you're trying to decide. Do we push quality speed? This is like the proverbial trying to thread the impossible neater. Okay, that word was needle. I don't know where the R came from. It's tug of war. It's really misalignment and over time it doesn't just slow you down, it wears you out.
Speaker 1:I believe there is a hidden toll of misalignment. Misalignment looks like competing goals between departments, job descriptions or role expectations that don't match daily responsibilities, personal values that are clashing with a team or organizational culture, constant pressure to be available even when you're off the clock. These seem small at times, but they're cumulative. Consider, maybe a hitch in your giddy up there's a phrase we haven't heard for a while A slight limp in your walk because something's just out of whack. It may not hurt at first. It just creates a little bit of difference in your cadence right, the way you move, but after a while maybe a mile, maybe a day, it throws your whole body out of alignment. That's when you need to go visit the chiropractor, but the same is true for your mental and emotional bandwidth.
Speaker 1:Tiny misalignments lead to friction, and friction drains energy. You start second guessing yourself, you delay simple decisions, you get irritable Okay, I get irritable over minor requests and then you wonder why am I so tired? I didn't even do anything that hard today, but you did. You fought against misalignment all day long. Misalignment all day long. So what can we do?
Speaker 1:Here are three strategies to consider to reduce decision fatigue and realign with clarity. Number one we're always looking for reconnecting or realignment to purpose. I know a lot of people will say that. Go back to your focus, your mission, whatever your purpose is, but it's true. When everything feels urgent, come back to what matters most. Ask yourself is this aligned with our core goal? If not, can you let it go, delegate it or reframe it? Come back to center when it feels overwhelming. There's the sense of I need something, I need a point of control, and then, when we reconnect to that purpose, other things become clearer. Number two limit micro decisions. What, might you ask, is a micro decision? These are small things that add up in our decision making. They are the little decisions that are repetitive or routine, that you have to keep making, which actually takes up bandwidth from where we need your mental energy on bigger things that require your experience and your talent.
Speaker 1:There are a number of authors out there who have recognized the power of checklists or rituals, and when we create checklists, rituals or even some sense of default settings for things you do daily, like morning routines, like morning routines, email processing, meeting prep, when we can take those regular things and just make them a checklist or process, it actually frees our brain up and saves some of that energy for the big stuff. Try it and let me know how it goes for you If you want to reach back out and let me know some sort of decision that you just put as a process so you don't have to make it anymore. It just became part of the routine. I would love to know what you did. What you did? Number three, on what can we do for today? Spot the misalignments, frame it, to name it. Take inventory when do your values and your calendar not match? No-transcript, because those mismatches or misalignments just consume energy.
Speaker 1:Even small shifts, like saying not right now to one project, can bring relief, I do believe, and in our change management curriculum we talk about staging change when you have a really big something and you can postpone another really big something. Or you have smaller to medium-sized changes that need to be made. How can you sequence those in a way that sets us up for success instead of overloaded and misery? We can't always postpone one project to bring that relief. Look for the small moments where you can say not now or that's not aligned to this, we need to regroup. Or that email thread that is now 10 messages deep. That should have been a conversation at email number two. Right, those things all hit. And here's a bonus Talk about it with your team, co-workers, your manager, maybe, if you have direct reports, give them permission to name decision fatigue when they feel it.
Speaker 1:Decision fatigue when they feel it. Sometimes the most powerful thing a leader can say is let's pause and clarify this before we push forward. It doesn't take very long. Now there are some organizations when I'm in doing the work I do when I say you got to slow down, to go fast. That's not always my most popular moment. Just a little bit of clarity. A couple of minutes might be a couple of hours. On a really big something gives us energy for later. When we clarify it now we can prevent some of the decision fatigue at a later stage.
Speaker 1:Decision fatigue is real, but it's also a signal. If you can picture this on your radar screen, it tells us where things are off track, what we might need to simplify, clarify or re-center. You might need to simplify, clarify or re-center. You don't have to run on empty. Choose alignment over exhaustion and when you do, you will make better decisions, not just for yourself, but everyone around you. Thanks for listening to the Workplace Chameleon. If this episode sparked something for you, send it to a colleague or, better yet, pause for five minutes and ask yourself where am I misaligned and what's one small step towards realignment? Because that'll get you a little bit of a short nap on decision fatigue. We will be back next in upcoming episodes around focus, prioritization and alignment. This season is about leading with intention and, until next time, lead with purpose. Protect your energy and keep showing up for what matters. And, as I will remind you because I need reminded every day to learn something new today, take care and be well.
