How to Reduce Decision Fatigue
Decision fatigue is a real thing! We make many hundreds of decisions every single day, and it wears out our brain. I know this to be true from personal experience. Decision fatigue is a kind of mental health gauge for me. If I have a hard time deciding what to wear in the morning I know I’m mentally tired and need to be kind to myself that day.
The good news is it is relatively easy to minimise decision fatigue. We can put simple systems in place that take the brainpower out of our daily tasks to give us more capacity for the more difficult and important decisions we need to make.
What will I wear?
If you’re like me and use up half of your daily decision-making ability just getting dressed for work in the morning you need to declutter your closet. I know, it sounds counter-intuitive to get rid of clothes to make it easier to find something to wear. Surely more clothes and more choices is a good thing, right? Wrong! Having a wardrobe stuffed full of clothes is overwhelming and unhelpful.
Imagine a wardrobe where every single piece fits you well, suits your personal style, is free of tears and stains and looks awesome on you. Every single piece. This is the wardrobe you want! Forget having to sort through the clothes that are too tight, too loose, too long or just ‘not me’.
You can take this to the next level and create a uniform for yourself. If you have a workplace that requires you to wear a uniform getting ready in the morning is easy! Put it on and go. No decision making required. If you don’t have a uniform to wear every day, you can create one for yourself. This doesn’t mean you have to wear the same thing every day, it just means you have a set number of outfits you rotate through.
Sound good? Take a ten-minute break right now, go to your wardrobe and lay out ten outfits you love to wear (include shoes and accessories). Now, grab the clothes left in your closet and stick them in a box and put it out of the way, ideally in another room. Give it a go for a few weeks and see how it feels. You may decide to get a few more things out of storage, or you may just donate or sell the whole lot. Enjoy not having to decide what to wear every day.
If you want to find out more about simplifying your wardrobe, check out these posts: Planning a Minimal Wardrobe and The Benefits of Owning Fewer Clothes
What’s for dinner?
When I had kids at home I was asked this question every, single, day. Often multiple times. And at the end of a long day, when all my decision-making ability is used up, working out what to cook for dinner can be stressful. We stare blankly into a fridge and pantry full of random ingredients and try to put something together that the kids will eat, is fairly nutritious, fast to prepare and doesn’t use too many pans that need to be cleaned at the end of the evening. It all feels too hard and you order take away, again.
Thankfully this is also an easy problem to fix with a little bit of effort. We need to create a meal plan. There are several ways to do this and I have found different approaches have suited me in different seasons.
For my family, a three-week rotating plan worked best. Four weeks was too much variety (and hard work) and two weeks wasn’t quite enough. I start with 2 things: a brainstorm list of meal ideas, and a family schedule. Most families have some nights when dinner needs to be on the table in 30mins, and other nights when you are home for a couple of hours before you need to feed everyone.
With this information on hand, sit down for a few minutes and create a meal plan. Then, create a master grocery list for each week. I have a friend who saved an online shopping list for each week of her plan so she just had to make a few adjustments and hit ‘order’. Her groceries were delivered each week containing everything she needed.
If you are ready to create a meal plan for your family there is a free downloadable workbook in this post: How to Create a Meal Plan that Works for You
What do I need to do now?
Many of us hold our to-do list in our heads. We write down the important things, our top three priorities etc, but there are a million other little things we don’t write down. If we did, we’d be writing all day and never get anything done.
But this list we are holding in our heads is taking up valuable thinking capacity in our tired brains. The simplest way to get everything done without needing to think about it is to create a morning and evening routine. Once established we don’t need to think about it. We just follow our routine.
If I am awake first I make coffee, read my Bible and write in my journal while Murray is still asleep and the van is quiet. Later I shower and get ready for my day, the same way every day. In the evenings I do a word puzzle and work on my crochet blanket. These things help my mind wind down.
This may sound common sense and simple, but don’t underestimate the power of a routine for your physical and mental health and wellbeing. When we incorporate wise and life-giving activities into daily habits we can change our lives! Exercise, mindfulness, journaling, reading and listening to quality content adds great value to our minds and bodies. When we do these things regularly they have a big impact on our overall well-being. Once the routine is in place we don’t need to think about it. The decision is already made. We just have to follow our plan.
Remember, you are a person, and people are complicated. Give yourself lots of grace and flexibility when you are developing your routine. Things change in each new season of life, and your routine needs to change with it. When you get married, your new baby arrives, your work hours change or you find yourself with a significant health challenge to face (or any other of a thousand life events), reevaluate your routine and make changes.
When do I need to change the sheets?
You know the enormous list you have in your head? If you are the manager of a home the list trails on to infinity. There is always so much to do, and we are the ones who have to keep it all running.
We can simplify our home management and free up our mental space by creating a plan for our home. Begin by brainstorming three lists: weekly tasks, monthly tasks and seasonal tasks. Then, schedule time in your calendar for each list.
For years I cleaned my bathrooms and mopped the floors every Friday morning. I wash my bed lined on the first Saturday of every month (same as my Mum). I change my toothbrush and wipe out my fridge at the beginning of each quarter. I don’t need to think about it. I just follow my plan.
I feel overwhelmed, again!
Having a thought out plan helps us face difficult situations. I don’t know about you, but in the heat of difficult moments and stressful situations my brain can just shut down. It’s paralysing.
Several years ago I accepted a job change to move from the Creative Team to the Pastoral Care team in our church. As hard as pastoral care is, I loved the role and felt privileged to walk alongside people who were going through challenging times. But there were hard days. Whenever the phone rang I could be talking to someone who had received a life-altering diagnosis or lost a family member. Some days were heartbreaking. And every time I would get off the phone and think, “What do I do? How can the church help this person in this situation?” In the emotion of the moment, I found these decisions difficult.
My very wise supervisor helped me put together a plan. We listed out the most common pastoral care needs and prayerfully developed an appropriate pastoral response for each. We could plan this out in a fairly pragmatic way because it was detached from the in-the-moment emotional load. I had permission to deviate from the plan where appropriate.
Having this plan made a huge difference. Pastoral care never became a box-ticking exercise. It is always personal and heartfelt, but I wasn’t crippled by indecision when my heart was breaking for people. I had a plan to guide my response.
You may not be a Pastoral Care Pastor, but we all have highly stressful situations in our lives that throw us off balance. You may have an elderly parent who is frequently hospitalised or a child with a disability or medical condition. You may have a stressful situation in your workplace or a trigger point in your marriage. Whatever it is, you can create a plan that guides your steps when the situation arises each time. Give yourself permission to deviate from your plan as you go, but allow yourself to fall back on it and not be overwhelmed every time.
I hope you find this helpful. By simplifying and creating routines and systems for your regular decisions, you create space to concentrate on the most important things in life.
