Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg may be one of the wealthiest people in the world, but he doesn’t spend that money on clothes. To streamline his morning routine and cut down on the number of decisions he makes, he wears the exact same outfit every day.
When asked why he wears the same T-shirt every day in his first-ever public Facebook question and answer session in 2014, he said, “I really want to clear my life to make it so that I have to make as few decisions as possible about anything except how to best serve this community.”
Business Insider UK reports, “He said even small decisions like choosing what to wear or what to eat for breakfast could be tiring and consume energy, and he didn’t want to waste any time on that.”
“I’m in this really lucky position, where I get to wake up every day and help serve more than a billion people,” Zuckerberg said. “And I feel like I’m not doing my job if I spend any of my energy on things that are silly or frivolous about my life.”
Having a uniform means Zuckerberg starts his day with one fewer choice to make, which could help keep so-called decision fatigue at bay. Decision fatigue is the idea that if you make too many decisions, your decision-making “muscle” can get fatigued and start to falter, like your physical muscles would falter if you tried to run up a flight of stairs after running a marathon. Creating a system to eliminate a few low-value decisions each day — like Zuckerberg opting to wear the exact same outfit — can help keep your mind and decision-making muscles ready to tackle bigger and more important decisions.
Zuckerberg’s not the only person who believes in eliminating decisions from your life. President Barack Obama told Vanity Fair in 2012 that he wears only blue or gray suits. “I’m trying to pare down decisions. I don’t want to make decisions about what I’m eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make,” he said. Similarly, J. Crew’s Jenna Lyons has said she eats the same thing for lunch every day. “It’s one less thing to decide,” she told Bon Appétit. “I know it sounds so boring, but it’s one place in my life where predictability is actually really nice.”
While they say variety is the spice of life, if you’re looking for ways to streamline your mornings and keep your mind sharp for future decisions, taking a cue from President Obama, Lyons and Zuckerberg just might help.
Originally published at medium.com