No Brainer Day

What the day is

No Brainer Day is listed here on January 27, though the imported text for this record says February 27, which is the date the observance is usually documented under. Either way, the instruction is to spend the day doing only the things that require no deliberation.

Origin and background

The origin of the observance is not documented. The phrase describes a decision where the right answer is so clear that no weighing is needed, and the research on decision-making suggests these are worth more than their reputation.

Deliberation is expensive. People making choices continuously through a day tend to shift toward simpler strategies as it goes on, defaulting to whatever requires least effort or simply deferring. The effect has been contested in its stronger forms and the dramatic claims about it have not all held up, but the basic observation that sustained choosing is tiring is not seriously disputed by anyone who has been to a supermarket at the end of a long week.

The practical response is to reduce the number of decisions rather than to try harder at them. Anything converted into a standing rule, a default, or a routine stops consuming attention. People known for demanding work frequently strip choices out of the rest of their lives for exactly this reason, and the famous examples of wearing the same clothes daily are a crude version of a sound principle.

There is a complementary trap. Some decisions get agonized over well past the point where more thought improves them, usually because the options are genuinely close in value. When two choices are that evenly matched, the deliberation is costing more than the difference between them, and the useful move is to pick one and move.

How to take part

• Do the obvious thing you have been overthinking.
• Turn one recurring decision into a standing rule so it stops recurring.
• Set a time limit on a decision proportionate to what it actually matters.
• Notice which trivial choices eat your attention daily and remove them.
• If two options seem equal, they probably are. Choose either.