Dr. No #64 – Why Your Worst Decisions Happen After Lunch

Hey lawyer,

Ever wonder why your smartest legal arguments happen at 9:03am…
…but at 4:17pm you say things like “fine, let’s accept their indemnity wording”?

It’s not you.
It’s ego depletion — the mind-blowing psychological phenomenon where your brain literally runs out of decision fuel.

Let’s fix that.

1. Food for Thought

How many of your legal problems are real…
…and how many are simply decisions you made when your brain battery was on 3%?

2. Book Insight – The Science of Ego Depletion

From Baumeister’s classic research on willpower:
Your brain has a limited daily budget of discipline, reasoning, and self-control.
Spend it early on nonsense (emails, tiny decisions, meetings-that-should’ve-been-a-memo)…
…and by the afternoon, you're a legal zombie.

Symptoms you’ve seen in yourself or your team:

• Over-negotiating trivial clauses

• Under-negotiating crucial ones

• Rage-clicking Outlook

• Approving things you shouldn’t because “I’ll review properly tomorrow”

• Disproportionate irritation at the phrase “quick question”

GC Applications:

• Make high-impact decisions before 1pm.

• Delay low-value tasks until ego-depletion o’clock.

• Pre-decide standards (playbooks, thresholds, templates) so the afternoon version of you doesn’t need to think.

• Rotate who handles late-day escalations.

One more twist:
Judges famously give harsher sentences before lunch.
Your team is no different. Hungry brains are hostile brains.

Use that wisely.

3. Mental Model – “Decision Batching” (Weinberg)

Batch decisions the way factories batch production.
GC version:
– Review all NDAs at once
– Approve all budgets at once
– Give all feedback at once
– Make all strategic decisions in the same peak-energy window

It works because your brain stays in one “gear” instead of grinding between 5 different cognitive modes.

4. AI Tool – Supercut

Record your screen → share instantly → look professional.
Perfect for training the business on processes without scheduling 47 meetings.
And ideal when your afternoon brain can no longer form coherent sentences.

5. Quote to Reflect

“Fatigue makes cowards of us all.” — George S. Patton

P.S.

When your team is drowning in repetitive contract reviews, massive due diligence, or vendor contract clean-ups, decision fatigue dominates your entire department.

Kill that problem at the root.

Ámbar’s Fractional Contract Counsel jumps in for:

• Heavy M&A clean-up

• Consumer vendor portfolio reorganisations

• Marketing contract standardisation

• Multi-jurisdiction template harmonisation

You protect your team’s brainpower.
We handle the heavy lifting.

Book a call with Ambar — and get your team’s mental energy back.

Keep cool, boss.

Rosa & Manuel - Dr. No