I’m feeling a bit exhausted today (my sleep tracker says last night was my worst sleep in over a month), so today I’m going to talk about fatigue.

Specifically, there are 5 common causes of fatigue that most contractors don’t know about. I’ll briefly touch on each, then explain how to avoid or reduce them so that you have more energy to crush it in your business.

THE 5 FATIGUES:

1. Judgement Fatigue

2. Persona Fatigue

3. Decision-Making Fatigue

4. Distraction Fatigue

5. Perception Fatigue

Let’s talk about each in turn, when you might experience them, and how to reduce or avoid them.

1. JUDGEMENT FATIGUE

Judgement fatigue is experienced when you interpret something as good or bad. Now there certainly are good and bad things in the world, but most commonplace occurrences are neutral and it’s up to you how to interpret them.

For example, if a material order arrives damaged or your impact driver breaks during a job… these things aren’t “bad” but just unideal.

Judging something as good or bad doesn’t help you improve the situation, it just drains your energy.

The correct way to avoid this fatigue is to observe the new information, see it as the new reality, then accept it and move on or try to change it.

One of my PMs is notoriously bad at this. If he wakes up in the morning and it’s kind of dreary outside, he’ll tell himself “What a nasty day.” And then his whole day is interpreted as ruined because he judged something neutral (the weather) as bad.

This is HORRENDOUSLY inefficient… but it’s a cognitive bias a lot of people in the industry experience without realizing how damaging it is.

2. DECISION-MAKING FATIGUE

An obvious one; making decisions requires lots of brain power which eats up energy quickly. Now there will always be hundreds of decisions to make every day, so you want to focus on reducing unnecessary decisions.

You can do this in two ways: Create systems that automate the decision-making process, and don’t second-guess yourself.

First, once you decide, stick to it. Don’t waffle back and forth, because then you’re really deciding and redeciding over and over and over again… which will sap your energy VERY fast. Make a decision, then EXECUTE.

Second, reduce the number of decisions that need to be made by replacing them with pre-built systems instead. Then discipline and habits replace decisions.

For example, use email scripts whenever possible instead of crafting emails from scratch every time. Create digital templates for documents, spreadsheets, and invoices. Have enough uniforms that you don’t have to decide what to wear to the job.

(My favorite example is one of my consulting clients is a contractor with 14 pairs of the exact same underwear. No deciding what to wear every day – it’s all the same … and laundry day is every other Sunday when he gets to his last pair.)

3. PERSONA FATIGUE

You experience persona fatigue when you are put in a social situation, and you feel like you have to “put on an act” for one reason or another.

Contractors often experience this during sales meetings where they have to “put on their sales face” and act more professional and scripted than they ever would if they were alone.

This is the toughest one on the list to reduce or avoid, because if you’re not a salesman or you have some bad habits like cursing a BIT too much … well you still gotta put food on the table.

So if I had to give some unsolicited life advice, I would recommend trying to ignore what other people think about you, and just focus on becoming a better more professional person overall. Then when you interact with clients you can just be more yourself instead of having to put on a front.

4. DISTRACTION FATIGUE

This one could also be known as “Task-Switching Fatigue”, but it arises when you get distracted from your current task and then have to restart from where you left off. Everyone is familiar with this one, and the science is clear that your energy dips every time you switch from one task to another.

Common causes are answering phone calls on the jobsite, thinking about a different job or problem while you’re already dealing with a different one, or having the Homeowner (or their pets) around during construction.

Reducing distraction fatigue is self-explanatory. Have your field guys keep their phones in their cars until lunch, then the phones go back in the car until after work. Require the homeowner to stay out of the production site until lunch or the end of the day (for “safety reasons”), etc.

Don’t tolerate distractions. Stay focused on the task at hand.

5. PERCEPTION FATIGUE

Now this is one a lot of people don’t think about. Your brain is constantly taking in information from your senses: sights, sounds, smells, temperature, etc. and having to interpret and organize them. This eats up a large amount of mental energy, and it is easy to get sensory overload and cause perception fatigue.

So if you reduce unimportant sensory input, you reduce energy drain. EZ PZ.

There are lots of tools for this.

Wear gloves on the jobsite. Shut the doors to other rooms if you’re working inside. Don’t watch TV in the morning or look at social media on your phone during lunch. Reduce sound input with earplugs.

And if you listen to music while you work, if you keep it to music without lyrics you’ll find you have more energy after work. (This is because you won’t be listening to words and doing energy-draining language interpretation.)

So if you’re struggling with fatigue, don’t ignore this information!

You’ll find that if you set up some simple systems, habits, or SOPs focused on minimizing these 5 different sources of fatigue… your employees and your business will become a LOT more efficient.