I got up at 6:30 this morning, even though it’s Scott’s morning to get Kendall to school. I did so willingly because this is the year of grown-up choices.
Oh yeah, I’m still on the January Cliche high.
I made breakfast. Again. Which is like, wow. I don’t even know who I am!
I’ve had a lot of coffee, but I can’t really say it’s working. The kids are all at school, and I want so badly to crawl back into bed for an hour. But this… writing this post… is one of my top 3 to-dos for the day.
See? It says so in my new planner. (Another top 3 is to clean the kitchen.) So I’m going to get those 3 things done before I reward myself with anything. Really.
||OMG, y’all. I have been looking at this planner all morning. And I just now- at 10:30 am, realized I planned today on yesterday’s page! I am chronically flakey. ||
I read this thing about Decision Fatigue late last year, and it really spoke to me. I am SO that person who shuts down when faced with too many choices. My God, the Cheesecake Factory is torture.
And when I tell my husband, “Seriously, you pick the restaurant. Just. For. Once.” I MEAN IT. On Valentines Days of past, I’ve been known to get super agitated at the fact that I am always the one who does the choosing of the place to eat. On this one day of the year, please show your love to me by not making me make a decision.
The idea behind decision fatigue, from my understanding, is that even the smallest, repetitive decisions can exhaust you throughout the day. So, they suggest a couple things.
1. Limit your choices.
2. Do important things early in the day, before all the decisions exhaust you.
On the doing things early in the day part- I KNOW that’s what I have to do. It’s a very hard thing for a not-morning person to commit to. But, if I’m honest with myself, I realize that I am not just physically exhausted by 3 pm lately, but I’m mentally drained, too. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a round of productivity after 6 pm.
Is this what getting old is like? Because even 30 year old me could get a solid 3 hours of work in after bedtime, but 33 year old me is not having any of that nonsense.
Anyway, I woke up early this morning in an effort to conserve mental energy later in the day. Jury’s still out on that one.
The easier of the two for me will be the first- limiting choices.
I’ve always known that clearing clutter from the house makes me feel better. I enjoy nearly monthly purges of our closets and the playroom. We donate A LOT to the local women and children’s shelter. So I’m actually excited to implement this in everything from what I wear to what we eat.
I’m not a fashionista, but I have enjoyed experimenting with clothes more over the last year. I don’t think I’ll go so far as to create a capsule wardrobe, but I’m going to focus on limiting my choices hanging in the closet to ones I truly love and actually wear. Like, at this moment. Not in the future when my waist is smaller.
I think where I feel the most decision fatigue, by far, is when it comes to food choices. I might be feeling this to the max right now because of this Whole 30 thing I’m doing, but I also enjoy the fact that this makes me make decisions ahead of time.
We’re experimenting with foods and getting back to healthy basics, and the whole family seems to mostly be enjoying it.
I’ve tried so many approaches to food in the past, and the more gourmet and complicated, the worse our family responds. I hate all the dirty dishes and time spent making food nobody else appreciates, and the kids are really tired of me trying to get them to eat exotic meals every night.
It’s not that I’m opposed to trying new things! I think I just need to respect all of our limits more.
So at some point before the Whole 30 is over, I’m going to try to write out 30 or so dinner ideas that are crowd pleasers (which I’m sure will include a lot of Whole 30 hits). And that’s going to be what we work from for the year.
We may deviate from time to time, but that base of 30 go-to meals should be enough to create some peace about feeding people in this house.
It’s seriously been so stressful in the past. I find we put off dinner until nearly bedtime because we just… don’t know what to do. It’s like I WANT to prolong the witching hour? Dumb.
We’ll still budget days and money to go out to eat, but I’d also like to focus on keeping those choices simple, too, for days we’re not feeling adventurous.
We love stopping in at Subway for healthy sandwiches and salads, so that’s an easy choice for us anytime. Even for me.
So, tell me, if you were to simplify your life and limit your choices, how would you go about it? Have you done this? I really want to hear from people who this has worked for long-term!
It seems like this is one resolution that should be easy to keep – do LESS, not more in the new year.
Thanks to Subway for sponsoring this post about grown-up choices!