Our home build journey - the wrath of decision fatigue ♡

Before I was a parent, I feel like I never understood my own capacity. You know, that line that you draw when you’ve absolutely reached your limit? For me personally, I think a very large part of an “at capacity” feeling, can be attributed to decision making. When you throw some extra activities in the mix of your already crazy life, you might find yourself evaluating how you can fit all of these things into your life and then wondering how can I spread myself, but still do a good job?

This leads me to the topic of decision fatigue... It’s a real thing, and it’s very relatable to construction and just life in general for me right now.

Lately on the home build front I’ve been starting to feel that “I don’t really care” feeling when someone asks me a question about the build. Beau and I have always worked in the same way- he doesn’t really like making decisions (my theory is that he can blame me when I choose wrong hahaha). We’re both planners, and we both have equal input, but Beau always looks to me for the final decision. And then (thank goodness for him), he’s the doer because that is not my forté. Lately questions like ‘where do you want this light to go?’ and ‘how long do you want the island bench to be?’ Have me frazzled. And this is where I’m at - decisions seem to have me fatigued. 

I’m a mum of 4 busy little boys, a wife and a business owner, and I wouldn’t have it any other way, but if you ask me on any given day I 100% would have been up in the night with one of my gorgeous boys - whether it was nightmares, wet bed, wanted a bottle or even just a snuggle. Let’s just say, my sleep count could be better - and I am almost certain that sleep is heavily related to my decision making abilities. I also know that Beau can’t make a decision to save himself the day following a night shift 🤪

I make hundreds of decisions for myself, my family members and my business on any given day (and I say this with a pinch of salt in the fact that Beau is equally as hands on with our boys and their daily routines), but when he is on shift, I think we would both agree that mentally I take the load of decision making.  Right now I simply feel like I spend my entire life making decisions. What am I going to feed the kids for breakfast? what am I going to wear today? what are the kids going to wear today? what do the kids need to take to school today? what should I put in their lunch boxes? what social media am I going to post today? what type of front do I want on the fire place in the new house? what colour will our walls be? Which way should we lay our deck? This is just the tip of the ice burg.

So I’ve been doing some research. Humans are limited to the amount of quality decisions they can make in any given day. And if you spend your decisions on mundane questions, when it comes to the more important things, we tend to feel frazzled.

I’ve been trying to counteract some of my decision behaviour through eliminating mundane choices and even moving unimportant decisions to the other end of my day - so that I have space in my brain for the the things I need to really focus on right now. The build and of course The Home Planner Co. I really want to be making quality decisions as some of these things (especially when it comes to the house build) are permanent and I have to live with them long term.

Some of the strategies I have been trying out lately to preserve my decision making quota are as follows;

• making lunches at the end of the day. Usually my decision making is of poor quality by the end of the day and with making lunches the night before, i have limited choices. It’s easy to spend energy here when I’m feeling tired
• Getting the kids clothes out for the next day, the night before. Less decisions to make in the morning! 
• Having the same thing for breakfast everyday. Boiled eggs and coffee. I know what I’m having before I get out of bed. No decision required.
• I’ve been trying to be decisive, make a choice and not look back once the choice is made. Rehashing or overthinking a decision is exhausting!
• Encouraging autonomy. If you trust the question askers judgement, give them the autonomy to make the choice. My favourite phrase lately “I trust your judgement”
• I’ve been trying to make decisions ahead of time so that I don’t get caught off guard. If you know it’s coming, try to know your options early!
• We’ve started ordering Hello Fresh for dinners so that we don’t have to decide what to eat - and what a weight off! 

Basically following routines, decreasing options and setting time limits will help you to stop being so spendy when it comes to your decision making quota. Ideally decision making should be avoided when you’re tired or hungry, however with 4 kids, and a shift worker in the house, tiredness can be difficult for us to avoid - so we do the best we can here.

To summarise, if you’re going to be building or renovating in the near future, I think this is an interesting topic to consider - what do your decision making habits look like? How could you rejig things to make space in your life and brain for this new activity or project?

I personally feel like a home build or renovation is a significantly more enjoyable process, when our heads are in the game. If we watch our decision quota with intent, one would think that our decisions will easily flow and our project will come together more cohesively 💥

That’s my thoughts on paper for this week.

I’m going to post this at 7pm tonight because that’s what time I’ve posted all my other blogs and I didn’t have to make that decision 🤪

Chat soon, Lauren x