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
Am I the only one who loathes myself for wasting time staring into the fridge with despair having zero ideas what to serve for dinner? I try to avoid this by planning our meals so that I can decide ahead of time. When I first started, I wrote down all the things we ate over the past month. This saves time by not re-inventing the wheel. Even if the meal was not ideal in nutrition value, it’s a place to start. Don’t judge the meals, just write them down. Use this as a starting draft for the meal planning, and then modify as you get more used to the routine. This also helps with grocery shopping, to ensure that I have the supplies on hand for the meals I want to cook.
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). I also leave space for eating out about once a month, and I use frozen foods at least 2-3 times a week to save time – dumplings, pizza, chicken tenders, veggies, waffles. Given my lack of time to cook, I also try to stay with the same, familiar recipe, and will venture to try a new dish about once a month. A rotating menu of the same limited meals might be a little boring, but boring saves time to have more fun! 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 confusion. Or searching for that one shirt that I want to wear, but have to turn over every shelf with zero luck. 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.
In summary, I do the same thing as above for meals. First, I set aside all these clothes I have actually worn in the last few years. Use the past, no need to re-invent the wheel. Then I declutter the rest of the clothes – to save/store or to donate. Then, once I can see all the practical and comfortable clothes that I actually look forward to wearing (versus a “cute” shirt that just doesn’t fit my body and requires a perfect day of not feeling bloated to fit into), I can easily scan the closet to make more outfits. Writing down and sometimes even putting the outfits for the week on one section of the rack save me time from having to think and make decisions, which is really hard before having any coffee.
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.
Two ways more ways I plan my workouts, one is by looking at the weather. This affects which days I will run. Nothing is more disappointing than waking up to a downpour when I was looking forward to a peaceful jog. Any runners reading this? The other way I plan my workouts is to delegate that to a personal trainer! There are just too many decisions to make at the gym. Which body part to focus on. Which equipment to use. What weight to use. How many reps. I help patients and life coaching clients make decisions all day long. I told the trainer that everything is his decision, almost. I plan when I have a session. He plans the rest!
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.