freedom by creating headspace, whether we’re making museum-worthy art or just trying to manage our ordinary days.
Strategies to Streamline Decisions
Let’s explore some specific strategies you can establish to limit your options and streamline recurring decisions. Some are obvious; others may surprise you. All have the common goal of establishing habits that make it harder for overthinking to slip in. Think of them not as handcuffs but as your default settings. In lieu of a pressing need to make a different choice, the “boring” routines you create can serve as a fatigue-busting framework. Because you already decided these things once, you don’t have to decide every time you’re presented with the same question.
Eat the Same Thing
It’s remarkable how many decisions we face every day about food. Food and mealtimes play a huge role in our rhythms of life, so when we streamline these things, we save big.
The first time I realized it’s okay to eat the same thing every day was ten years ago, when I went through an intense (and brief) CrossFit stage. I quickly realized that many of our gym’s elite performers ate the same thing every day, and I mean the exact same thing. One of my training buddies ate turkey, green beans, and almonds, measured to the ounce, six or seven mini-meals per day. Some athletes would mix things up by adding variety for dinner or implementing a weekend cheat day, but to me, the backbone of their diets seemed mind-numbingly boring. Nevertheless, they sang its praises, saying the mental savings generated by this consistency were nothing short of amazing.
When I started paying attention, I realized they weren’t alone. Many high performers in a variety of disciplines regularly eat the same thing every day to free up mental space. I wasn’t trying to run the world or even hit a new personal record in the gym, but I liked the idea of preserving my mental energy for loftier things than my lunch menu.
Flash forward ten years, and to my great surprise, I’ve become one of those people. Ninety percent of my days, breakfast and lunch look the same, day in and day out. Breakfast is some combination of eggs and avocados. Lunch is red curry in cold weather, huge salads in warmer months. It’s not exactly the same thing, but it’s close; the formula is easy to make, easy to shop for, and easy to vary.
If the idea of eating the exact same thing every day makes you queasy, relax. You can implement the same principle in less dramatic ways. For years I planned our family dinners around the Kroger sale flyers, which dramatically reduced our choices. If chicken breasts and salmon were on sale, we’d eat chicken breasts and salmon. Later, I further limited our options by creating a meal matrix. It’s not a set-in-stone menu but a template that narrows our options, embracing meatless Mondays, taco Tuesdays, and pizza Fridays.
Whether you choose to eat the exact same thing or adopt a starting point like a meal matrix, you’ll save significant amounts of mental energy.
Adopt a Signature Dish
When I was twenty-two years old, I read that everyone should have a signature dish—a reliable recipe you’re always prepared to make for friends. That way, you don’t have to spend your mental energy deciding what to serve, and you don’t have to worry about choosing or executing a new recipe when guests come over. Instead, you can fall into your regular routine—at least as far as the food is concerned—and focus on your friends.
Over the years, I’ve enjoyed observing how various friends put this concept into practice. Once I stayed with my friend Lisa right after she’d hosted a fancy dinner for eighteen—and not just hosted but prepared and served. Lisa is a born hostess and past hospitality professional, so I was interested in the practicalities of the situation. What did she serve, and how did she pull off a party for such a large crowd?
She always serves the same thing for fancy dinners, she told me, because she has enough to worry about without stressing about the food. Her signature menu is beef tenderloin (roasted in the oven, with homemade horseradish sauce), Caesar salad (with doctored store-bought dressing, and you better believe I photographed the bottle for later reference when she pulled it out of the fridge to show me), twice-baked Boursin cheese potatoes, and dessert from a local bakery. Guests love the meal because it’s delicious; Lisa loves it because she’s made it so many times