The Ultimate Form of Self-Love: Reducing Decisions
We often think of self-love as bubble baths, spa days, or treating ourselves to something nice. And while those things are great, one of the most powerful acts of self-care is something far less glamorous—but way more impactful: making fewer decisions.
If you’ve ever ended the day feeling mentally drained—yet unsure why—it’s likely because of the sheer number of decisions you’ve had to make. From deciding what to wear and eat to managing your home, business, and marketing, every decision pulls from your limited mental energy. This is called decision fatigue, and it’s real. When we’re forced to make too many important decisions or choices, our brains get overwhelmed, leading to mental exhaustion, stress, burnout, and procrastination.
The solution? Simplify. Eliminating unnecessary decisions isn’t about laziness or taking shortcuts—it’s an act of self-preservation and care. When you remove decision fatigue, you create more space for clarity, creativity, and peace.
In this blog, I’ll break down What decision fatigue is and how it affects you, Why reducing decisions is a form of self-love, and My go-to ways to eliminate decision fatigue in home organization, project management, and marketing. Let’s dive in.
What Decision Fatigue is & How It Impacts Your Well-Being
Decision fatigue happens when the quality of our choices deteriorates throughout the day due to an overload of decisions. The more choices you have to make—big or small— in a single day, the more mentally drained you become.
By the time you get to the evening, this is why you might find yourself:
Feeling negative emotions about your day and what you accomplished
Struggling to decide what to cook, so you order takeout instead
Skipping a workout because the thought of choosing what to do feels exhausting
Pushing off content creation because you don’t know what to post
Lacking emotional connection with your spouse, kids, or friends
When your brain is overloaded with choices, here’s what happens:
Overwhelm & Procrastination – You put off tasks because every step requires a decision.
Burnout – Constant decision-making drains your mental energy before you even start real work.
Poor Choices – By the end of the day, your decision-making abilities are crap. You’re more likely to adopt poor decision-making, which is full of impulsive decisions, whether it’s eating unhealthy food, skipping a workout, or ignoring good daily habits related to your self-care or mental health.
The easiest way to combat this? Make fewer decisions. Let’s talk about how.
How to Reduce Decision Fatigue in Home, Business & Marketing
Some of the most successful women in the world recognize this and intentionally remove unnecessary choices from their daily routines.
Women Who Simplify Their Decisions to Succeed
Anna Wintour (Editor-in-Chief, Vogue) – Wears a signature uniform of a printed dress and sunglasses, eliminating outfit decisions so she can focus on high-level creative and business decisions.
Oprah Winfrey – Delegates decision-making around food by hiring a chef who prepares meals based on her wellness goals, reducing the mental load of choosing what to eat daily.
Arianna Huffington (Founder, The Huffington Post & Thrive Global) – Prioritizes non-negotiable routines, like a set bedtime and digital detoxing, to avoid decision fatigue.
Beyoncé – Structures her time with strict routines and delegation, allowing her to focus on creativity rather than minor details. She also eats the same meals during intense training periods to remove unnecessary food decisions.
Shonda Rhimes (TV Producer & Writer) – Uses theme days to structure her work (e.g., writing days, meeting days, production days), reducing decision fatigue on what to focus on daily.
Serena Williams – Prepares for big matches by following repetitive routines to avoid unnecessary choices that could distract her from peak performance.
Marie Kondo – Lives by her own decluttering philosophy, ensuring her space is free from excess items that require decisions on storage, use, or maintenance.
Simplifying decisions isn’t just about efficiency—it’s about clearing mental clutter and freeing up mental energy for what truly matters. Let’s explore some of the ways I recommend applying this same principle in your home, business, and marketing.
Home Organization: Simplify Your Space
Declutter Once, Then Maintain – Make the decision once to remove unnecessary items so you don’t have to keep deciding where things go. The easiest way to do this is to create clear goals for the space you are decluttering. Once you have a clear vision of how you want the space to look, feel, and function, it's easy to remove and discard anything that doesn't move that vision forward.
Designated Zones for Everything – Assign zones to specific areas in your home. Zones align with actions you do daily. Think of a zone for your morning routine that designates a clear place for where you get ready every day, where you pack the kid's lunches, and where you grab everyday essentials to eliminate searching. With zones, you can easily see when something is out of place and sort items to create a peaceful home.
Daily Reset Routines – A 10-minute evening reset (put things back, wipe counters, tidy common areas) ensures you start fresh without thinking about it. It's a more systematic approach to keeping a neat space and allows you to go into the next day with fewer small decisions, and you can instead do your most creative thinking at the start of the day.
Automate Household Tasks – Set up recurring grocery orders, laundry schedules, and meal planning templates to avoid repetitive decision-making. Again, the more we can turn into a system, the easier your days will be, and you can be on cruise control at home instead of having to be on all the time. Your energy is best served tackling significant projects at work and spending quality time with those you love, not on whether or not the laundry is dry or what you're eating for dinner.
Project Management: Work Smarter, Not Harder
Batch Similar Tasks Together – Instead of deciding daily what to work on, block time for emails, meetings, and deep work. This approach allows you to prioritize your energy for the most important things and is an effective strategy to accomplish more when your brain doesn't have to task switch as often throughout the day.
Use Templates & Checklists – Standardize processes as much as possible. If there is something you need to deliver every day, turn it into a template. This could be a report you send, an email, or even a checklist for your household to knock out something you handle often. The key point is to ensure you’re not making the same decisions over and over.
Limit Your To-Do List – Choose three key priorities per day to avoid decision paralysis. I struggle with this sometimes because I just want to knock out everything (the plight of an ambitious lady, am I right?), but limiting yourself to three things can do so much for your mental state, stress levels, and confidence. You can always get three things done.
Make Decisions in Advance – Set clear deadlines, approval processes, and team responsibilities upfront to prevent endless back-and-forth. Again, if there is something you have to approve or sign off on, turn that into a checklist for your team or family. These are the things that allow me to say yes. It will train them to work differently and ensure you can make a decision faster and effortlessly.
Marketing: Streamline Content Creation
Create a Content Bank – Keep a running list of content ideas so you’re never starting from scratch. I use Asana to collect all my ideas, so when I am ready to act on them, I can schedule them and add them to my to-do list at a moment's notice.
Batch & Schedule in Advance – Dedicate one day per week to create and schedule social media, emails, and blogs. I dedicate Fridays to my content creation, so I know I am always making time to talk about myself, my business, and my brand.
Use a Simple Posting Framework – Stick to a content rotation (e.g., Education, Personal Story, Behind-the-Scenes) to eliminate the daily “what should I post?” dilemma. The more consistent you are, the easier it is for your audience to know what to expect and for you to breeze through what's on your to-do list.
Repurpose, Don’t Reinvent – Turn one blog into multiple Instagram posts, emails, and LinkedIn updates instead of creating new content from scratch every time. Good marketing essentially is talking about the same thing multiple times in multiple ways. It may be repetitive for you, but it's not nearly repetitive enough for your audience, who is being marketed at by multiple brands constantly throughout the day.
The Unexpected Freedom That Comes With Fewer Choices
By simplifying my home, business, and marketing decisions, I’ve noticed:
More mental clarity – Less stress over small, insignificant choices
Increased productivity – More energy to focus on high-impact work
A stronger sense of peace – Knowing my time is spent on what truly matters
The fewer decisions I have to make, the more present I can be for the things that actually move my life and business forward.
Self-love isn’t just about self-care routines—it’s about creating systems that make your life easier. Simplifying your choices doesn’t limit you; it frees you.
