Leadership Decision-Fatigue Self-Assessment
A self-assessment plus one-week decision log that pinpoints the specific hours and decision types where a sales leader's judgment is measurably degrading — not just "you seem tired," but which hour and which category of call to protect.
What's inside
- 12-item decision-fatigue symptom quiz with 0-4 scoring
- 4-band interpretation: Sharp / Strain / Degraded / Critical
- One-week Decision Log template tracking time, type, mode, confidence, and reversal
- 4-category decision taxonomy: People / Deal-Terms / Strategic / Reactive
- 5 time-block breakdown for pinpointing your worst hour of the day
- Confidence-average and reversal-rate formulas by time block and by decision type
- Degradation Zone identification method
- Matched fix for each degradation zone pairing
- 2-week re-test protocol with target score movement
Decision fatigue doesn't feel like fatigue — it feels like "just approve it," "we'll figure it out later," or snapping at a question that deserved a real answer. This tool has two parts: a quiz that tells you whether decision fatigue is present at all, and a one-week log that tells you exactly when and on what kind of decision your judgment is degrading — so you can protect that window instead of vaguely trying to "manage stress better."
Part A — Decision-Fatigue Symptom Quiz
Score each statement for the last 2 weeks: 0 = Never, 1 = Rarely, 2 = Sometimes, 3 = Often, 4 = Almost always.
| # | Statement | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | By late afternoon I default to "let's discuss later" on things I could decide now. | ___ |
| 2 | I've approved a discount, exception, or deal term I later regretted. | ___ |
| 3 | I catch myself picking the option that ends the conversation fastest, not the best option. | ___ |
| 4 | I've reversed or walked back a decision within 48 hours of making it. | ___ |
| 5 | I feel measurably sharper in the morning than by the end of the day. | ___ |
| 6 | I avoid a difficult people conversation (coaching, performance, a hard "no") until I'm forced into it. | ___ |
| 7 | I say yes to meeting requests or asks I know I'll regret, just to avoid the friction of declining. | ___ |
| 8 | Small decisions (which template, which slot, which minor approval) feel disproportionately draining. | ___ |
| 9 | I've snapped at, or been short with, someone over a decision that didn't warrant it. | ___ |
| 10 | I make my most important calls (hiring, firing, big deal terms) whenever they land in the day, rather than protecting a specific time for them. | ___ |
| 11 | After back-to-back meetings, my next decision quality noticeably drops. | ___ |
| 12 | I rely on "gut feel" more, and structured criteria less, later in the day. | ___ |
Total score: ___ / 48
| Score | Band | Read |
|---|---|---|
| 0–12 | Sharp | Decision quality is holding steady across the day |
| 13–24 | Strain | Fatigue is present but not yet costing you real decisions |
| 25–36 | Degraded | Judgment is measurably worse at specific points — go to Part B to find exactly where |
| 37–48 | Critical | High-stakes decisions are actively at risk — protect your highest-stakes decision windows starting today, don't wait for Part B |
Part B — One-Week Decision Log
For one working week, log every decision that meets this bar: it would matter if you got it wrong. Don't log what to have for lunch — log people calls, deal-term approvals, prioritization calls, and anything reactive that came in and forced an immediate call.
| Time | Decision type | How I decided | Confidence (1–5) | Reversed within 48h? (Y/N) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| e.g. 9:15am | People | Deliberate | 4 | N |
Decision type key:
- People — hiring/firing, coaching calls, performance conversations, team conflict
- Deal-Terms — discount approvals, contract exceptions, pricing calls
- Strategic — prioritization, resourcing, what-to-say-no-to calls
- Reactive — anything that landed unplanned and forced an immediate call
How-I-decided key: Deliberate (worked through it) / Snap (went with first instinct) / Deferred (put it off) / Delegated (handed it off)
Confidence: 1 = guessed, 5 = certain this was the right call
Part C — Find your Degradation Zone
At the end of the week, group your logged decisions two ways and compute averages:
By time block:
| Block | Avg confidence | Reversal rate (# reversed ÷ # decisions) |
|---|---|---|
| Before 10am | ||
| 10am–1pm | ||
| 1pm–3pm | ||
| 3pm–5pm | ||
| After 5pm |
By decision type:
| Type | Avg confidence | Reversal rate |
|---|---|---|
| People | ||
| Deal-Terms | ||
| Strategic | ||
| Reactive |
Your Degradation Zone = the time block and decision type combination with the lowest average confidence and/or highest reversal rate. Most leaders find it's a specific pairing — e.g. "Deal-Terms decisions after 3pm" or "People decisions before 10am, before I've had a real coffee and a minute to think."
Part D — Fix the zone, not the whole day
You cannot eliminate decision fatigue. You can stop making your highest-stakes decisions inside your worst window.
| If your degradation zone is... | Do this |
|---|---|
| People decisions, late in the day | Move all coaching/performance/hard conversations to a fixed morning slot; if one lands late, say "let's pick this up tomorrow morning" rather than deciding tired. |
| Deal-Terms decisions, late in the day | Set a rule: no discount/exception approvals after a fixed cutoff (e.g. 4pm) without sleeping on it overnight — batch them to first thing next morning instead. |
| Reactive decisions, any time | Build a 60-second pause habit: before responding to anything reactive, ask "does this need an answer in the next hour, or could it wait until my sharpest block?" Most reactive asks survive the wait. |
| Strategic decisions, after back-to-back meetings | Never schedule a strategic/prioritization decision directly after 3+ consecutive meetings — put a 15-minute buffer before it, even if that buffer is just silence. |
Re-test
Re-run Part A in 2 weeks after applying your fix. Target: total score drops by at least 6 points. If your Degradation Zone hasn't shifted, the fix wasn't structural enough — the zone likely needs to be protected by someone else (an EA, a chief of staff, a standing calendar rule) rather than by willpower alone.
How to use it
Take the 12-item quiz first to confirm fatigue is present, then run the one-week decision log, compute your confidence and reversal averages by time block and decision type, and apply the fix matched to your specific Degradation Zone.