I can tell you how to deal with decision fatigue because I’ve learned from experience. At 6 a.m., the decision-making marathon began: I packed four kids’ lunches, carefully choosing which protein, fruit, and dessert would suit each child. Next, I decided what to thaw out for dinner, when to celebrate our daughter’s birthday, how to solve the conflict of the kids’ soccer practices—and all this before work began. By 5 p.m., when my husband asked what I had decided about the camping trip reservations that needed to be made, I just couldn’t. I’m pretty sure I glared at him and walked away.
As moms, we have to make decisions all day, every day, and decision fatigue is a real thing. A 2024 study of 3,000 US parents found that moms manage 7 out of every 10 household mental load tasks. Every single one of those tasks requires a decision. No wonder we hit a wall. So how can we keep going when we reach our limit? How can we keep from losing our temper or crumbling over where to go for dinner? Here are 3 C’s to help you handle decision fatigue.
1. Choose the first thing.
Let go of pressuring yourself to make the perfect decision every time. That’s key to mastering how to deal with decision fatigue. Trust me, I’m talking to myself here. I don’t just want to pick out a good pair of sunglasses—I want the perfect pair. I don’t want to decide on a decent birthday present for our youngest—I want the perfect present. But this constant search for the “perfect” decision brings me to a point of decision fatigue much more quickly, and there I am, blankly staring at the shelves or endlessly searching online. To deal with my perfectionism, I’ve learned to choose the first acceptable thing I see and declare that it is good enough. Because it is!
Try this: Nobel Prize-winning economist Herbert Simon found that people who chase the perfect decision end up less happy than those who choose “good enough.” So give yourself permission to set a simple bar. Does it work? Is it within budget? Will it get the job done? If yes, decision made! And then say out loud, “This is good enough.” It sounds silly, but naming it helps your brain let go.
2. Create a default.
According to Kendra Adachi, author of The Lazy Genius, you can “decide once” on a lot of things. Make the decision just one time, and later you can trust it and default to that decision for days or even weeks to come! For example, last spring I made a list of 10 meals that my family loved and rotated this list for three months. It took no brain power to do the meal planning and grocery shopping. And you know what? My family didn’t even notice that I had those 10 meals on repeat.
Try this: Pick one area of your day that drains you and make a decision about it—just once. For example, lay out a week’s worth of outfits on Sunday night so you never stand in front of your closet at 6 a.m. again. (This works for your kids, too.) Or decide on a default snack rotation so “what can I eat?” has the same answer every Tuesday. (It’s Trail Mix Tuesday!)
You can do this for whatever daily tasks stress you out. It may seem monotonous, but taking the guesswork out of those little decisions will reserve your brainpower and energy for other things.
3. Categorize this decision.
It’s funny how it’s often the tiny decision that pushes us over the edge. One secret for how to deal with decision fatigue is to recognize when it’s happening and put the decision at hand into one of two categories: life-altering or small. If it’s small (and it almost always is), you can see it for what it is and choose with confidence, knowing it doesn’t really matter in the long run. If it truly is big, give it a landing spot instead of letting it float around in your head.
Try this: When a decision feels too big to make in the moment, try this three-step pause. Write it down. Get it out of your head and onto paper so it stops circling. Schedule it. Literally put “decide about X” on your calendar for a specific day and time when you’ll be clearer. Pray about it. Sometimes the best thing you can do with a hard decision is hand it to God and give yourself permission to wait for clarity. A decision that feels impossible at 5 p.m. on a Thursday often looks completely different on a rested Saturday morning.
What’s underneath decision fatigue?
Sometimes decision fatigue occurs simply because of the sheer number of decisions you’ve had to make, and you’re tired. But other times, there’s a subtle fear underneath each decision, poking and prodding. What if I make the wrong decision? Is there’s something better? What if they don’t approve? And fear is the worst kind of energy-sucker!
What helps me silence these fears is to choose faith instead. Do you trust in a power higher than your own? When I trust that God is ultimately controlling my path, and I trust that He’s already seen all the decisions I’ll make in my lifetime, I can breathe again. My decisions don’t have the power to throw God off His plan for me and my family. And when I make a poor choice (and I will, because I’m human), I can even trust that God can use it for good in the long run.
That evening with my husband and the camping trip? I came back to it after dinner—calmer, fed, less depleted—and we figured it out in about five minutes. The decision hadn’t changed. I had. And that’s really the whole point. We can’t eliminate decision fatigue, but we can stop letting it eliminate us. Choose good enough. Build in your defaults. Know what’s actually big and what isn’t. And when you’re running on empty, trust the One who never does.
What helps you handle decision fatigue?
