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.
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.
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.