One of the most common complaints about eating healthy and losing weight is finding the time to do it all. You have to prep meals, count calories, plan for special occasions, find time to exercise, and still manage all your normal responsibilities with work and family. It can be exhausting which is why many of us don’t make a lot of progress. We get bogged down in making a billion decisions and then burnt out when we don’t see results.

I find that decision fatigue is one of my ongoing problems. By the end of a typical day I’m so tired of making choices and decisions that if I don’t have a dinner already planned I’ll reach for whatever is nearby or go to a restaurant. One of the reasons why I enjoyed the 24 Day Challenge was because I had a plan where a lot of decisions were already made for me. I didn’t have to think about it as much. There wasn’t decision fatigue when I had fewer decisions to make.

When you have to make too many choices during a day it leads to mental exhaustion. It’s why lots of famously successful people choose to wear the same clothes everyday – getting rid of little decisions like that frees you up to think about more important things. We are affected by decision fatigue almost every day as we wake up and then start the endless decision making process – what to eat for breakfast, how to handle work situations, where to go for lunch, etc. The choices you make through the day – big or small – wear you down a bit each time. These choices gradually use up your mental energy and zap your willpower.

Obviously decision fatigue can be a problem when you are counting on willpower to help you make healthier decisions. How do you say no to fast food or buying ice cream at the grocery store when you’ve used up the majority of your mental power already? Marketers actually count on this happening to you so you will give in to those impulse buys. The damage you do to your healthy lifestyle usually happens at the end of the day when you feel drained and have trouble making the best decisions.

There are a few options to combat decision fatigue. Create a set meal plan for the week or cook once for the whole week. Or create several healthy meals you will eat over and over again and make those at meal times. Only go grocery shopping in the morning on the weekend or when you are mentally awake. Go to bed early at the same exact time every night. Set up as many systems and plans as you can to make healthy choices for you.

Lately I’ve been experience decision fatigue in a major way. I’ve not made as much progress as I hoped after my challenge because I’ve been in the foggy mental state of decision fatigue on most days. I recognize the problem so now I’m working on a few technique to combat it. Nailing down a more set schedule is my first goal and then I will be following it up with reducing the amount of decisions I have to make in a day. I’ll have a set breakfast that I can eat each morning for example.

Honestly, most of us could benefit from reducing the amount of decisions we have to make every day. Finding ways to automate and reduce your decision making during the day will help you free up some much needed mental energy for other things. The fewer decisions we have to make the easier it will be to achieve our goals!

Maybe you need to wear the same clothes every day or have a set breakfast and lunch or have a standing appointment to workout at the same time. Whatever those decisions are, let’s make them once and then allow ourselves the freedom not to have to make them over and over. Let’s get rid of decision fatigue.