By cost, I mean the time, mental energy, and…
By cost, I mean the time, mental energy, and resulting stress involved in deciding what to do in any given situation
— from Fuel (Energy)
In the book
As you ruminate and catastrophize, you are pulled into a mental loop that quietly drains your vitality faster than almost anything else. And even ordinary deciding costs more than we think — self-control and judgment run on a kind of muscle that tires with use, a depletion that makes every later decision worse; the sheer mental energy and stress of deciding what to do, all day long, is a real and rarely-counted cost. The exhaustion of effortful work is not weakness or imagination; it is real, and it is the gauge telling you the truth. — Fuel (Energy)