If my brain is working really hard, can I be expected also to make the best decisions?

Cake or fruit?
That is the question.

Willpower and cognitive processing draw from the same pool of resources.

I should be making the handouts for my talk on SEO at the upcoming ACO conference. But it’s complicated:  the writing, the editing, the figuring out what is enough and what is probably too much.

I think I need a snack. Mmmmmmm … Sugared nuts my sister-in-law made for Christmas.  Probably not the best choice at 9 AM.  But that’s what my brain said I wanted.

Why did I not choose an apple, or an orange or one of those pretty-close-to-too-ripe bananas? And what does this have to do with people who live and work with ADHD?  As it turns out, a lot.

Kathy Sierra wrote in her blog, Serious Pony:

…165 grad students were asked half to memorize a seven-digit number and the other half to memorize a two-digit number.

After completing the memorization task, participants were told the experiment was over, and then offered a snack choice of either chocolate cake or a fruit bowl.

chocolate cake
Image by Pexels from Pixabay
Fruit bowl
Image by Jacques David from Pixabay

The participants who memorized the seven-digit number were nearly 50% more likely than the other group to choose cake over fruit.

Researchers were astonished by a pile of experiments that led to one bizarre conclusion:

Willpower and cognitive processing draw from the same pool of resources.

Kerch McConlogue

Kerch McConlogue, CPCC, used to be a coach and somehow can’t stop thinking about deciding and how coaches and coaching works for people with ADHD.  Now she helps coaches and other businesses people decide about their websites  at WeFixBrokenWebsites.com