The best way to stay focused is to make decisions ahead of time.
Help future-you by planning these 3 things ahead of time. Less time contemplating on these things in the future means your decisions will be both high quality and efficient. Save time for future you for writing, reading, reviewing bank statements, or whatever it is your nerdy heart desires. Also cool if you want to have more time to kick around a soccer ball or watch football. These 3 things might seem like minor decisions, but the time saved adds up.
Meals and snacks
Planning ahead for our meals that I don’t waste time staring into the fridge with despair. I usually plan at least 2-3 days in advance, which leaves room for unexpected cooking crises (like the planned veggie going bad or dropping a pizza on the floor sauce side down). Even my kids know to plan their snacks and will pack them the night before. This minimizes the chaos during the morning rush to get to school.
Clothes
Planning ahead for my outfits ensures that I am not wasting time staring into my closet with despair. Or scrolling on phone to look for outfit inspiration ideas – which inevitably leads to scrolling of 17 additional topics before I catch myself 43 minutes later. I just decluttered and re-organized my closet this weekend, so I’m excited to make this process even more seamless and fun. With only clothes I actually wear, things I have worn in the last 2-3 years at least once, everything I see is a practical outfit. And with fewer clothes, there are slightly more limited permutations of options I have, and therefore fewer options to decide on. But don’t worry – there are still about 403 potential combinations. It’s still a lot of clothes. Paring this down might be even more helpful to make decisions faster. Heh.
Workout
My 3rd minor detail life activity that I plan ahead for is my exercise routine. I plan out which days I will go to the gym, run, or workout at home, and I have a rough plan for which body part I will focus on. Do I follow the plan 100%? Absolutely not. I am not a robot. But I’ll take my 67% success rate with a plan over 5% without a plan. And, planning ahead prevents me from staring at my phone in despair, wasting the time I would have just doom scrolling and/or scrolling to look for a workout to do.
Saving time and mental energy
Of course there are the “big potato” tasks that I plan ahead, like making slides for a talk, or reviewing articles that I reference in the talk, or looking for plane tickets to Hallstatt, Austria. But these “small potato” things to plan also make a big difference in saving time. Batch those decisions, and save time and mental energy from having to think on it individually and from doomscrolling!
What’s 3 things would you choose to plan ahead to help your week go a lot smoother? Email empowered at betamomma dot com to share your answers or comment on this post >>>here<<<. I would love to cheer you on! >>>Sign up<<< for the weekly newsletter to get inspiration at the start of each week to get motivated, take practical actionable steps forward to live your best life, and to stay inspired for the rest of the week.