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TRANSCRIPT
Have you ever felt like you were completely crazy by the end of the day and you just couldn’t make one more decision?
This week we’re talking all about decision fatigue and strategies on how to lessen that so if you don’t know what this is or you want help with it. Listen, because we’ve got some good stuff coming.
Are you ready to be more productive in your home and say goodbye to the dreaded mom guilt associated with a messy house and chaotic days? Hey, my name is Rachel and the Mama Gets it Done podcast is for the everyday mom. Yes, even those hot mess moms who just need a little grace and a few tips for getting more done in your day. If you’re ready to figure out how to stop hating cooking every night, how to give chaotic days, a little more structure, and how to find more time for you in this crazy mom life you are in the right place.
Welcome back, mama friends. Okay. This week, we’re talking about something I’ve mentioned a lot in the past, but we’ve never done like a really deep dive on it. And I’m really excited to do a deep dive on this particular thing. Because I promise it affects your life every single day.
But you 1. may not know what it is and if you do know what it is 2. you may not know how to handle it or how to make it better.
So I’m going to talk about what is decision fatigue and then I’m going to give you some really actionable items that you can use to help decision fatigue in your life.
So let’s jump right into it. I cannot wait for these things. Alright, so if you’ve never heard of decision fatigue before maybe you know kind of what it is and you need but you need a better idea. decision fatigue is this idea that as you make decisions throughout the day, your ability to make a good decision basically or to just process and be able to make the decision in a timely manner that you need to lessens.
So this takes its toll with each and every decision that you have to make. It can start as soon as you wake up with am I going to brush my teeth first or am I gonna go drink a cup a coffee? It can be am I going to wear this shirt or that shirt or can be something big like telling your kid Yes they can go on this trip with a friend or something of that nature. You know, like a bigger, more important decision. No matter big or small this decision is. It’s affecting your decision, fatigue throughout the day, and the more and more decisions you have to make.
Basically, by the end of the day, you’re going to be mentally and physically exhausted. It does not just affect your mental state. You’ll see this and like even obviously, as moms, we make a million decisions a day, a million big and very small. And this even goes on to like big CEOs like where instead of deciding what clothes they want to wear everyday, they give themselves a uniform or something like that, so that that decision is out of their mind. That keeps their brain freed up for bigger things.
There are some that only make one decision a day for their business and that’s what they capped themselves out to. Like there are some really high figures in life who like really believe and subscribe to this now not all doctors believe in this. But as a busy crazy mom I firmly do and the actual steps that we’re going to talk about has helped me so regardless of if it’s an actual thing or not, which I think it is, these steps can definitely help your life regardless, now that we’ve kind of established decision what decision fatigue is in literally everything can like contribute to it.
Let’s talk about ways that we can address it in our life and reduce it number one I’m going to talk about is creating systems and schedules in your business and your home or in your work in your home. That reduces decision fatigue. So number one inside of that might be to create a daily schedule that works for you.
I know we’ve talked about this all the time, but seriously a simple daily schedule of how you move through your day and so that it’s an automatic thing and not something you have to think about all the time will totally help that decision fatigue going on in your brain if you haven’t yet, grab the freebie the daily schedule reset freebie for there’s one for moms and one for business moms. Grab them at the link in the show notes they are super awesome. You can also check out too we have a whole podcast episode on block schedules. And I think that that is the absolute best way to schedule for busy moms like us where you don’t have to make decisions, but you still have a very loose structure.
We need flexibility in our lives. Go out and make sure to link that episode in the podcast as well. Obviously, like we set the schedule, it’s important. Number two would be to create systems for things so you don’t have to think about them as often.
So within your schedules, you can have systems and the systems can really help all these daily tasks that you have to take on. Just make them more automated or more thoughtless because you know exactly the steps you have to follow to get to the end. So this could be like setting really simple cleaning schedules like so instead of deciding Oh am I going to clean the bathroom or the kitchen today? You can look at your schedule that you’ve made for yourself before, and some pre-planning and say oh, today I’m supposed to do this.
Like the simple thing of having that on a list can be massively helpful because I know for me I am an overthinker. So me I’m gonna weigh so many things of should I clean the bathroom or should I clean the kitchen? Well, the bathroom may be really gross, but the kitchen really needs to be functional. And like I could go back and forth all day long on this one very simple-ish decision. So making that for yourself ahead of time can be massively helpful, and having systems like a simple cleaning schedule can be a massive help.
Something in your business can be like a scheduler. So having a system for scheduling social media posts, say this is when I download these this is when I create these. This is when I upload these and then schedule it for later so that it’s kind of automated. That can take away a lot of the decision fatigue of like, what time I’m going to post this today. And then over-stressing about like is this content really good?
I can’t tell you how many things sit in the drafts on my phone. You guys who want the content probably hate me for it if you knew how much content was in the drafts on my phone simply because I’m like stressing too much over if it’s good enough to put out. Yeah, that’s a thing. It’s real.
So another small system, so we’re just talking smaller here that I use in my life. These are just some actionable examples. My daughter has to get allergy shots every other week. We have that on our calendar and it just repeats every other week on the day we’re supposed to do it so we never have to think Oh, have we gone and done shots this week? No. It’s set on a day. We just have to follow our schedule.
Anything you can do ahead of time like that is going to be massively helpful. This kind of goes right into automating. Automating can really help massively. So obviously, that’s an automated system. Not all of our systems are going to be automated, like the time we do our dishes or the process in which we do our dishes is not going to be automated. But there are all kinds of things in your life that you can automate, right? Something like grocery pickup or delivery.
So you already go ahead and you make the decision, all kinds of decisions on what things you’re going to put on your grocery list. Let it stop there. Go ahead and put it into the app or the website, schedule delivery or schedule pickup and be done with it. Going to the grocery store, just creates unless you want to be out and about which I totally understand as a mom in a pandemic unless you want to be out and about just go to the grocery store. But if you could avoid that that’s just more decision-making that you’re going to end up having to do at the grocery store.
I rarely go to the grocery store anymore because it’s honestly like as much as I have time and I’m able to do is to write a quick list down, throw it in that throw it in there to schedule for delivery or pickup and a lot of times these days it’s delivery for us because of how far we live out and going to the store is difficult. So having it brought out a lot easier and it’s a whole thing
But setting those anything automated that you can do for yourself, reminders on your phones for certain things instead of keeping it in your head. That can be a simple automation. That is really, really helpful. Now obviously like if you want to get into like business automations there are all kinds and that is a whole episode in itself. But coming up with easy and little ways that you can automate your life can make things massively better. And that kind of does lead us into the last part of the systems.
Part of this conversation is to plan ahead whenever you can. Yes, you can use a planner. Yes, this is where a planner is helpful. If you haven’t seen our episode about why you don’t need a planner, you should go check it out, creating a plan ahead of time for your weeks in your months can really automate things in general on what you’re supposed to do it take away a lot of that decision fatigue.
So I do this a lot for my business. I plan ahead for three months at a time. And then I execute all those things. Yes, there is still like different things that pop up during the weeks. But like I know what my goal is for the next three months and I know what things I’m supposed to do. And so I don’t have to sit down and think, What am I supposed to do today. Now, I know what I’m supposed to do today. And I take away those few minutes of decision fatigue and I move on with my life. So making sure that you’re planning ahead is just so incredibly important.
You can even make this as simple as having it on your phone and making but make sure that you turn on reminders if you’re going to do that because if you’re like me and you forget to turn on the reminders you’ll have like 3000 things come up and you’re like, Oh, I missed that call because I didn’t have a reminder on it. Been there done that especially when you decided on these systems or automations or plans, or schedules, whatever you decide to make to make things better for yourself.
Make sure that you have made it extremely easy to access these things. So that’s why I say reminders, but also like if you decide on a family calendar is something you’re gonna use to help keep your decision-making down. Put it somewhere easy to see put it on a shared calendar on your phone. And even like the automations for your business or automations in your home, make sure that you have these things front and center.
So it’s like on a place on your phone. You can find it easily or bookmarked on your computer, because you don’t want to give yourself extra stress can try to think about when am I supposed to do that. And then you have to go through three different tabs or three different search three different things to actually find, like your schedule or whatever you’re supposed to be doing that day. Make it easy. That’s really important. Alright, another way we can help our decision fatigue throughout the day is a super simple one. And kind of one we’ve talked about already, but I just want to call it out very, very clearly, is to make decisions ahead of time. I mean, that is what we’re doing in the act of planning. But this is more of an action.
So doing things ahead of time to help us later. So that’s something like picking out clothes before. I’m not want to subscribes to this, but I make my kids do it because it helps them immensely in the mornings getting ready for school. meal planning. I know you’ve heard me talk about meal planning and you know, I love meal planning but meal planning ahead of time can make a massive difference in your evening to need to do it. prepping food ahead of time that takes even more things off your plate for that those decisions. Because all literally all you have to do is pull something out and dump it.
Yes, freezer meal prep, it’s the best thing in the world. So think of all the ways that you can make decisions ahead of time and execute on them make a list. It will be helpful, I promise. All right. And then here I’m gonna give you some rapid fire tips. At the end of this that will be massively helpful. Give yourself breaks during the day.
Seriously, give yourself brain breaks. They can be five minutes. You can try the Pomodoro method if you haven’t yet. Make sure to give yourself some kind of breaks from decisions throughout the day or from working throughout the day and let your brain rest. That leads us to the next one is making sure that you’re actually getting enough rest if you’re tired decisions are hard. So make sure you’re giving yourself enough rest and you’re not surviving off of coffee alone. I am preaching to myself here so that you can actually be able to make those big decisions that you or small ones that you need to make all day long. And the last rapidfire tip that I’m going to give you is to make bigger decisions in the morning when your
head is clearer. I can’t tell you how many times that I’ve been overwhelmed by the end of the day and made rash decision and been like, just I’m just not gonna do that right now. We’re gonna do this, do this now and tackle that in the future. And maybe that wasn’t the best decision in the moment. Maybe I should have tackled it right then. Maybe it’s something I decided at the last moment well because I didn’t meal plan ahead. And I didn’t make that decision earlier. I’m like, we’re ordering food. I’m not doing anything tonight. I can tell you my attitude of nope, not doing that increases the more the day goes on.
I hope you learned a lot today in this decision fatigue podcast and I hope you’ve taken away some really like important tidbits that you can do to help in your own life. And make sure to hit subscribe. Make sure to leave us a review. Thank you so much to everyone who has left us a review so far. I greatly appreciate it. Next week, we will have a big announcement coming. I’m really excited about it. Yes, it will help decision fatigue. And yes, it’s probably meal plan-related. I’ll just leave that tidbit in there for you. You all have a wonderful week. Give yourself a lot of grace and a little bit of coffee. Bye
