From the moment your alarm goes off, your brain starts working. Should you hit snooze? What should you wear? Which route should you take to work? Coffee or tea? These seem like small choices, but they add up faster than you might think.
The average adult makes an estimated 35,000 decisions daily—that's roughly one decision every two seconds while you're awake. Some researchers suggest the number could be even higher, with estimates reaching over 2,000 decisions per hour when you factor in both conscious and subconscious choices.
These aren't just major life decisions. They're the constant stream of micro-choices that fill your day: whether to respond to that text now or later, what to have for lunch (research from PBS North Carolina suggests we make around 227 food-related decisions alone each day), which browser tab to click, whether to exercise now or after work, and even mundane choices like which TV show to watch tonight.
Your brain is remarkable at processing this constant stream of choices. It gathers environmental cues and draws from past experiences to make quick, often automatic decisions. But here's the problem: every decision, no matter how small, depletes your mental energy. This phenomenon is known as decision fatigue, and it's why by the time you ask yourself "what can I do?" in the evening, your brain feels utterly exhausted.
When "Bored" Really Means "Decision Overload"
Here's something I've noticed: when people say they're bored, they rarely mean they have nothing to do. More often, they're sitting in front of endless options—Netflix queues, social media feeds, hobby ideas, work tasks—but can't pick one. The paradox of modern boredom isn't emptiness; it's paralysis in the face of abundance.
"I have choices, but I don't know which one to pick."
This type of boredom comes with its own symptoms: mental exhaustion that shows up before you've actually done anything meaningful, overthinking simple choices until they feel monumental, and that familiar gravitational pull toward default behaviors like scrolling, snacking, or aimlessly browsing because they require zero decision-making energy.
Your brain isn't being lazy. It's desperately seeking relief from the burden of deciding.
The Hidden Cost of Thousands of Daily Choices
According to research from the National Institutes of Health, making thousands of choices—even small ones—depletes our mental energy in measurable ways. When decision fatigue sets in, we don't suddenly stop choosing. Instead, we unconsciously shift our criteria for what to choose.
We stop asking "What would be most fulfilling?" and start asking "What's easiest?" We choose whatever is already open on our screen, whatever requires the least cognitive effort, whatever delays the next decision for a few more minutes. This is how entire days can pass in a blur of activity that somehow leaves you feeling like you accomplished nothing that mattered.
You're busy—but not fulfilled. Active—but not intentional.
Why Reducing Decisions Works Better Than Optimizing Them
For years, I thought the solution to decision fatigue was better planning. I tried elaborate productivity systems, detailed schedules, and decision-making frameworks. But I was approaching it backward.
The breakthrough wasn't learning to decide better—it was learning to decide less.
This is why routines are so powerful. They work not because they're optimal, but because they eliminate choice. Your morning routine doesn't need to be perfect; it just needs to be automatic. Habits work the same way—they bypass the decision-making process entirely, freeing up mental energy for things that actually require thoughtful choices.
But here's what surprised me: even with solid routines and habits, I still had those in-between moments. Those pockets of unstructured time where I'd feel bored, tired, or simply unsure what to do next. I didn't need another productivity system. I needed something simpler.
I needed an answer to one question: "What can I do right now?"
A Tool for When Your Brain Is Too Tired to Decide
That's why I built imakemyday.com—not as another productivity app, but as a simple answer for moments when decision-making feels like too much work.
There's no login. No settings to configure. No profiles to optimize. Just a straightforward tool for when you're feeling bored, mentally tired, or stuck in that paralysis of too many options. You tell it how you're feeling and how much time you have, and it suggests what to do next.
That's it. No complexity, no pressure, no additional decisions required.
This type of simplicity matters because when your brain is already fatigued from thousands of earlier decisions, adding more complexity—even in the name of "optimization"—becomes part of the problem. Simple tools work because they reduce decision fatigue instead of demanding more from an already exhausted mind. They remove overthinking, turn "nothing" into "something," and create momentum without requiring you to analyze your way forward.
The Most Important Thing I Learned About Boredom
Feeling bored doesn't mean you lack discipline. Feeling tired doesn't mean you're unmotivated. More often, it means your brain has been making decisions all day—from your 6 AM alarm through your lunch break to your evening Netflix scroll—and it's exhausted from the cumulative weight of 35,000 choices.
The solution isn't trying harder. It's recognizing when you need to decide less.
Next Time You Feel Stuck
The next time you catch yourself feeling bored or tired and asking "What can I do right now?", pause for a moment. Ask yourself: Am I actually lacking options, or am I lacking the energy to decide between them?
If it's the latter—and it usually is—the answer isn't to analyze your choices more carefully. It's to remove the need to choose at all. Simplify. Reduce friction. Let something small move you forward without requiring another decision from an already decision-weary mind.
Sometimes the best way to beat boredom isn't to think more carefully about what to do. It's to stop thinking and just start with anything. Because once you're in motion, the boredom tends to disappear on its own.