Tired of Making Decisions? Try These Tips ✨
Keep reading this post to learn:
⋒ What decision fatigue is and the things that cause it
⋒ 3 tips to help you with decision fatigue
⋒ Examples of simple habits and routines to help you with making decisions
Okay tell me if you can relate: my actual dream date is anything that I just have to show up for, lol – because by the time I’m done working and momming, the last thing I want to have to do is make more decisions.
Imagine your partner telling you that an outfit is laid out for you on the bed and to be ready to go by 5 PM because that’s when the sitter will be there.
Y’all get in the car and you’re taken to a new restaurant.
You show up and drinks are waiting on the table and appetizers soon follow.
You don’t even have to order your own meal because your partner took care of allllll the decisions ahead of time. YES PLEASE! 🙋🏻♀️
Real talk – sometimes when Adam so sweetly asks me what I want for dinner (he does the cooking in our home if you didn’t know), I feel like my brain is going to combust and I just want to cry over having to make another decision even though I’m obviously grateful that he’s cooking for us.
I know some of y’all can relate to me because this is something called decision fatigue – it’s a real thing!
I’m a stats girlie so I’m gonna hit you with some facts real quick. I read an article from the American Medical Association on decision fatigue and here are some things I want to share from it:
Decision fatigue is “the idea that after making many decisions, your ability to make more and more decisions over the course of a day becomes worse,” said Dr. MacLean, a psychiatrist. “The more decisions you have to make, the more fatigue you develop and the more difficult it can become.”
“Every day, just in our personal lives, we are making a ton of decisions. And a lot of these decisions you are not consciously making,” she said. For example, “you open the refrigerator door and sometimes the only thing that’s in there is bagels and that’s a pretty easy decision. “But if there’s a lot of different things in terms of ... what do I eat, what do I wear, what do I do with my day especially on a day off, that can create stress,” Dr. MacLean added, noting that “by the time the average person goes to bed, they’ve made over 35,000 decisions and all of those decisions take time and energy, and certainly can deplete us.”
Ummm is it just me or does anyone else feel very seen right about now???
I feel like since having Everly, I find myself struggling with decision fatigue even more than I did pre-mom life… but don’t get me wrong, I still had it sometimes before becoming a mom, too – I think pretty much everyone deals with decision fatigue from time to time. But like I said, it’s really ramped up since entering into motherhood so I’ve taken more steps to do something about it since it’s affecting me more these days.
That stat that I read earlier said that we make around 35,000 decisions a day… A DAY! No wonder we’re mentally tapped out by dinner time.
I’ve come up with 3 tips that I use in my life to help lessen the heaviness of decision fatigue so I’m gonna share them with you so you can start implementing them in your own life.
Notice I didn’t say that these tips make decision fatigue disappear – I don’t know how to make that happen but shoot me an email if you do, lol – but these tips really do help me to not feel as stressed, anxious, or overwhelmed by decision making that happens in the later parts of my day.
3 tips to help with decision fatigue:
Tip 01: Streamline your decision-making using habits and routines.
You’re probably not shocked to hear me say something like this right? What can I say – I’m a productivity coach, lol
But for real, streamlining is clutch when it comes to decision-making. One of the definitions of streamlining is: design or provide with a form that presents very little resistance to a flow, increasing speed and ease of movement.
So streamlining doesn’t make decisions go away, it just makes the process of making the decisions easier.
Examples of decisions you can streamline:
~ Outfits:
Right away I think about Steve Jobs – he was known for wearing the same thing every day – jeans, a black turtleneck, and New Balance sneakers. He never had to spend precious brain power deciding what he was going to wear every day. And I don’t know about you, but I’ve wasted more brain power than I care to admit on that very thing.
But honestly, I don’t want to wear the same thing every single day – sounds boring to me, lol. So what I’ve done is pare down my closet to things that I actually like and wear. It makes getting ready so much easier to know that everything in your closet fits and you like it.
I got rid of a ton of my clothes after having Everly because I realized that I was holding onto a lot of stuff “just in case” I ever needed it again but that I actually hadn’t worn in years. I’ve been working to curate my closet in a way that really excites me. So that when I walk in, it feels like a store that was made for me, my style, and my body. I don’t know, maybe that sounds weird to some people but it makes sense in my mind. I spend maybe 30 seconds a day picking out my outfit because of this!
~ Meals:
That leads perfectly to the next thing you can streamline – what you eat. There are different ways to streamline what you eat – you can do meal planning or use a meal prep service.
I like to have my favorite go-tos for each meal so that the size of the decision I have to make is less vast. So in this season, for breakfast, I either have a protein bar, avocado toast with an egg, or an egg scramble. For lunch, I either order a salad, make a sandwich, or have dinner leftovers. And then Adam plans our dinners but we have a collection of like 5-7 recipes that we rotate between – chickpea pasta, chicken and veggies, fajitas/tacos, etc.
I’m no meal prep/planning expert but figure out a way that at least helps you to minimize the size and amount of meal-related decisions that you have to make each day to help with decision fatigue.
~ Schedule:
This one is HUGE… seriously. I can’t even imagine waking up and just winging it every day. The very thought of that exhausts me, lol.
I’ve designed my daily schedule and weekly routines to help me be able to show up and get done what needs to be done without having to figure out how it’s all gonna happen. I rarely have to make decisions about what’s next or where is this going to fit into my schedule because I have daily and weekly outlines created to help me strategically fit everything in that matters.
If you don’t have a daily schedule and weekly routines to support your current season, please prioritize creating them because they will lessen your decision fatigue so much! If you need help with making these, check out my Peacefully Productive Schedule course – that’s literally what it’s all about!
These 3 things that you can streamline might not feel very significant but think about how many times a day we change clothes, eat, and move from task to task – a freaking lot! By streamlining decisions surrounding your outfits, meals, and schedule, you’re saving a lot of brain power every day.
Tip 02: Make more important decisions in the mornings when your brain is fresh.
That sounds very obvious, right? Like of course we want to make our most important decisions when we have the most brain power – but are you actually doing that though?
I will say, I’m really good about this. I know that my brain feels like a bowl of mashed potatoes by 5 PM so I try to not make any big decisions after that. I’ll straight up tell someone, “I’ll follow up with you about that tomorrow morning when my brain is fresh and I can make a better decision.”
We love a good boundary around here.
Too often, I’ve felt pressure to make a decision in the moment, and then I regret it the next day because I was mentally exhausted when I made the decision and I realize that it wasn’t really the best decision I could’ve made.
I make better quality decisions earlier in the day so it makes sense to my weightier decisions in the morning when that’s possible.
I try my best to save decisions like booking trips, big work projects, and committing to help someone with something for the morning time so that I am making the most rational decision possible.
Tip 03: Use the magic question to help you make decisions
Okay, this is one that I made up so allow me to explain. The magic question I’m talking about here is this: “How would the healthiest version of me respond?”
That is the question I’ve been using for the last few months to help me navigate decision fatigue – when I need to make a decision and my energy is low, I pause, ask the question and it helps me re-center instead of just making a decision that I don’t really align with or avoid making a decision altogether.
An important key here is being in touch with or aware of the healthiest version of yourself.
Part of getting clear on my vision, which is Key 2 to Hustling Sanely is knowing who I want to be and how I show up for my life. I stay in touch with the healthiest version of myself by consciously embodying her as often as possible. My favorite ways to do this are in the mornings when I’m praying and journaling. I imagine the healthiest version of me as if I’m watching a movie of her in my mind. I know it sounds a little woo but it’s not – it’s literally just picturing yourself showing up for your life how you desire to.
When I picture the healthiest version of myself, I imagine her waking up and doing her morning routine. I imagine her choosing foods that nourish her and give her energy. I imagine her moving her body in ways that make her feel strong and healthy. I imagine her using products that are good for her body and home. I imagine her speaking with love and kindness to her family. I imagine her being poised and patient. I imagine her being confident with the work she creates. I imagine her being present with her family in the evenings. I imagine her reading instead of scrolling before bed. See what I mean? It’s not weird – it’s just intentionally thinking about the healthiest version of you!
I use this magic question to help me make big decisions and seemingly smaller decisions, too.
Some examples of when I’ve used this tip in my real life:
~ Deciding whether or not to scroll on my phone past 9 PM
~ Deciding whether I should have another coffee or make matcha instead
~ Deciding how long I want to go on a work trip
~ Deciding what I want for dinner
Using the question, “How would the healthiest version of me respond?” doesn’t make decision-making go away but it helps you to pause and make more intentional decisions.
And that is what I’ve got for y’all today – my tried and true tips for helping curb decision fatigue.
To recap, the 3 tips are:
01. Streamline your decision-making using habits and routines.
02. Make more important decisions in the mornings when your brain is fresh.
03. Use the magic question, “How would the healthiest version of me respond?” to help you make decisions when you feel like your energy is low.
Let me know over on Instagram stories which of these 3 tips you’re going to try out first – my personal favorite is using the magic question because it really does help ground me and keeps my decision-making as intentional as possible even when I am mentally exhausted.
Need help streamlining your schedule?
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