Decision Fatigue and what we can do about it!

According to Psychology Today, the average person makes about 35,000 decisions a day! Some studies have shown that those of us who care for others (moms) make twice that many. That’s a lot of decisions! No wonder we just feel exhausted and sick of making decisions. This is called decision fatigue. And when we reach this point, we our decisions tend to deteriorate. This means we are not making the best decisions for ourself or other. So what do we do about it?

There are 2 things we can do.

1. Elimate the decision all together. This would be when we completely remove something from our plate.

2. Make the decision ahead of time. This is where batch work (doing a lot of one thing) is helpful!

Using these 2 tools, here are 5 categories where we can start to help ourselves prevent decision fatigue.

1. Meal planning. We see it all over the internet. People are sick of having to decide what we are eating for dinner. I get it! I used to hate it as well. I’ve made meal planning a part of my weekend routine. I take 5 to 10 minutes each weekend and decide what we are eating for the rest of the week. This makes my week so much easier! You can even use the same meals over and over until you’re tired of them! Take this decision away from your day. No one wants to think about this on the drive home from work. But if you have prepared ahead of time, your future self will be so happy you did! (If you want to know more about a simple way to meal plan, check out my course HERE.)

2. Capsule wardrobe. Have you ever found yourself standing in front of your closet and while there might be a hundred items there, you feel like you have nothing to wear? I know I have! What if we eliminate the things from our wardrobe that we don’t want to wear. Take out what doesn’t fit right or those things you never choose. It makes it even easier when we adopt a capsule wardrobe which just means that our clothes and shoes easily coordinate with each other.

3. Cleaning. Are you a distracted cleaner? You’re headed to get the vacuum when you stop in the restroom and realize it’s been too long since you’ve cleaned the toilet. So you go to get the toilet bowl cleaner and pass the laundry that’s overflowing… You get the idea. I used to feel like I always needed to be cleaning something.
   When I created a cleaning routine, it took a lot of pressure off my shoulders. My house stays clean and I have only one cleaning task a day. Now, I am tidying often, but I don’t have to worry about deciding what to clean.

4. Where things go. This is a big one. When you have an item in your hand, do you know where it belongs? When everything in our home has a home, a place it belongs, we are taking away making the decision of where we might want to place it. We know where it goes! And we also know where we can find it.

5. What my plan is. Don’t you hate the feeling of knowing you need to do things, but you aren’t sure what to do? By creating a plan for each day, it frees my mind to focus on the tasks at hand. You can take it a step further and create routines like the Ideal Week, Evening Routine, and Weekend Routine to save even more brain space!

And then for a final tip. If you find that vacation is exhausting because you have to make so many decisions while on vacation, I recommend a cruise. Cruising is my favorite vacation! We eat at the same restaurant each night. The food is delicious! The kids can choose whatever they want. The entertainment is decided for that day. The cruise ports are decided. If the kids are hungry, there are so many free options 24 hours a day! I really love a cruise and I believe it’s because I am truly able to relax and stop having to make all the decisions for myself and my family.

If you suffer from decision fatigue, let me know which of these benefit you the most!