Ep 145 Decide Once: How to Save Your Mental Energy and Get Things Done

Three clients, in three separate conversations this week, said a version of the same thing  and when something knocks three times, I pay attention.

They'd each realised they were spending huge amounts of energy not on doing a thing, but on repeatedly deciding whether to do it. And when they decided once, instead of over and over, something opened up. More got done  and they felt lighter.

This is a practical episode about decision fatigue, open loops, and a beautifully simple, well-evidenced tool for closing them. It's not about more willpower or hustle... it's the opposite. Think of it as discipline for people who are tired. Which, let's be honest, is most of us.

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Transcript

0:47

Hello, and welcome back to Rooted in Presence. I'm Carly, your curious midlife guide and founder of Still Space Hull, and this episode is now 145. So today's episode is slightly more practical, and it's came about when I noticed a pattern this week, which if you heard last week's episode, you'll know is rather my specialty. Three different clients in three completely separate conversations all said a version of the same thing to me, and when that happens, when the same idea comes knocking three times in a week, I've learned to pay attention. So I thought I'd bring it here because if three of my clients are bumping into this, I suspect a fair few of you are too So the pattern then, well, each of them in their own way have discovered that they were spending an enormous amount of energy not on doing a particular thing, but on repeatedly deciding whether to do it or not. And when they stopped re-deciding and basically decided once, something opened up. They got more done, and more importantly to me, they felt lighter. They felt better. One of them actually stopped mid-sentence when they realized and said, "Oh, of course, I've taken the question of whether I'm doing the thing or not completely out of the picture." And I could hear the surprise in her voice, like she'd been given permission to stop doing something that was completely exhausting her, and she hadn't even realized that she was doing it. So that's where we're going today, how deciding once instead of deciding over and over can save you a surprising amount of mental energy, help you actually get things done, And in a way, I'll come back to at the end, but help you be more present in your own life. Which given that this podcast is called Rooted in Presence, is of course, on brand. So what is it really about then? Is it really about discipline? I want to be very clear from the start about what this is and what it isn't, because on the surface, an episode about getting things done could sound like it's going to be one of those, or another one of those more discipline, more willpower, more hustle, pull up your socks kind of conversations, and it really isn't. I mean, that's not very me. You know, if anything, it's almost the opposite of that. So this isn't about summoning more willpower. It's more like arranging things so you don't need quite so much of it. Even removing that decision rather than white-knuckling your way through it every single time, because willpower, as it turns out, is not an infinite resource. There's plenty of studies to show it, that as well, and I think most of us in midlife have probably worked that out the hard way. So this is kind of discipline for people who are tired, which, if I'm honest, isn't that most of us? So let me explain a little of what's actually going on underneath all of this, because I do love it when there's a mechanism to, to look at or point at, and there are two really useful ideas here. So the first is something you might have heard of, decision fatigue. The idea around this is that making decisions draws on your limited pool of mental energy. Every choice you make through the day takes a small withdrawal from that mental energy bank account, which is why by the time you get to the evening, everything feels harder. And it's not that you've become lazy or weak by 6:00 PM, it's that you've roughly made a thousand decisions since you woke up, and your energy bank account is running low. The big decisions, the small ones, what to wear, what to reply, what to cook, where everybody's socks are, whether to go to the gym, they all come out of that little energy purse. And the second idea, which I think is also super interesting, it's about what an undecided thing does to your mind whilst it's still undecided. So there's a concept, and I think sometimes it's called the Zeigarnik effect, might be saying that wrong. And by all means, go and look that up. But it describes how the brain holds onto unfinished or undecided things. It keeps them open. It runs them quietly in the background of your brain and nudges you about them so you don't forget. Have you done that yet? Are you going to do the thing? What about now? It's a bit like a tab left open on your computer, you know, using up the processing power even when you're not looking at it. Uh, I'm sure none of you can relate to this. So when you have an open decision, say, whether or not you're going to exercise today, that's not a one-off cost. Your brain doesn't ask it once. It asks again and again all day, every time it surfaces. It's like another little withdrawal, another flicker of that open loop demanding your attention. And that's genuinely tiring. And most of the time, we don't even notice it's happening. We just feel inexplicably worn out, even when you can't say why. So I hope that makes some sense for you now. But this part is key. That loop doesn't close when you do the thing. It closes when you decide you're gonna do the thing. The relief comes from the decision, not the action, which is wonderful news because it means that you can close that loop first thing in the morning and stop paying that tax for the rest of the day. So something I want to just, uh, make sure we name though, because it matters even more in midlife and through menopause, when so many of us are already working with less available capacity than we're used to. And when that account is running lower already, every open loop you can close is capacity that's handed back to you. It's not indulgence. It's essentially really good housekeeping, especially for an overstretched system. So let's get practical because I did promise you practical for this episode. So I have a tool to share with you here. It's beautifully simple, and it has a slightly clunky name to it in the research, and it's called an implementation intention. But you don't need to use that name all the time. All you need to know is the shape of it, which is if this, then that. An if-then statement. You decide in advance what you'll do in a given situation so that when the situation arrives, there's no deciding left to do. The choice is already made And I'd have to say this is one of the most well-evidenced tools in all, all the behavior change, uh, manuals or records. But there really is a a genuinely large body of research showing that people who make an if-then plan follow through far more often than people relying on good intentions alone. So this isn't some life hack that I've read on a mug. Um, it's one of the sturdiest findings we have in terms of behavior change. So here's how it showed up for one of my clients. She'd been going back and forth with herself about morning workouts. Some mornings she'd make it, some mornings she wouldn't, and either way, she'd spend a good chunk of the day in negotiation with herself about it. So we made it simple. We made a simple if-then for her to use. So what she decided to call it was, "If I don't go to the gym in the morning, then I go in the evening," and that was it. That was the whole intervention for this particular case. And she came back to me genuinely surprised, because it wasn't that she was now doing more, although she was. It was that she'd stopped spending all that energy on deciding, fighting with herself, and she said, "Of course, I've taken the question of whether I'm even going to the gym, going to do that workout, out completely. It's no longer up for debate each morning. It's just going to happen, morning or evening. Decided. It's not forced." That's the open loop closed. She decided once and got to stop paying that tax And I have a second example for you, a slightly different flavor from another client. And I love this one because it's such a gentle way of doing, um, something that a lot of people lose a lot of energy to. So she's a single mom with two children, and she is juggling an enormous amount, and her available energy for daily decisions is understandably precious. She didn't want to track her food all day, day to day. That was taking up too much mental bandwidth for her. And honestly, for all sorts of reasons, daily tracking isn't something I tend to encourage for some people, and for a lot of people, it just isn't the right thing. But she found a way to use a tracking tool completely differently. So instead of logging every day, she used it once as a planning tool. She sat down, built herself a library of meals that she knew would work for her, meals she enjoyed, that suited her family, that fit roughly what she was aiming for, and then she was done. She didn't have to think about it all through the day, every day again. She had her library. When it came to it, she just chose from things she'd already decided would be suitable for her and her needs and her goals. And she remarked back on how much mental energy that saved her. All the daily deliberation, what shall I make? Is this okay? What about the kids? What have we got in? All of that just evaporated because she'd done the deciding once in advance when she had the capacity to do so. She closed the loop in a calm moment, so she wasn't reopening it every single evening at the hardest, most tired part of her day And that's the shift from redeciding daily to deciding once and choosing from what's already been decided essentially. So the same tool a lot of people use anxiously, but instead as an act of forward kindness to herself So let me give you an example of my own, 'cause of course I need to lead by example as well. And this is from a good while back because this one genuinely changed things for me when I was pretty much at the start of my journey, and it was a bit of a twist I didn't see coming at the time, but for me it's absolutely revolutionary. So this was back when I was working on establishing a new baseline for myself, And fat loss was part of that. And for a long time, my lunches were a bit of an afterthought. Most of the time a cheese sandwich day after day, grabbed without much thought. And if I'm honest, I was actually trying to eat as minimal as possible at breakfast or lunch to save my calories until the end of the day. And then I'd come home in the evening and have to face that whole question of cooking tea from scratch. Tired, hungry, my decision account already empty So I decided I would make one small change. I decided that when I cooked my evening meal, I'd cook an extra portion, a balanced one to have for next day's lunch, and that was it. And I want to be careful about how I talk about this, 'cause I'm not here to tell you what to eat or to turn this into a meal prep sermon. It's just that the interesting part for me was never really about the food itself Because what surprised me was, yes, I was more satisfied at lunch, which was nice, but the thing I didn't expect was what it did to my evenings. I'd come home noticeably more grounded, less frazzled, less in a heightened state from a busy day in the NHS. And this is the bit that got me. I stopped raiding the cupboards for biscuits while I stood there trying to decide what on earth to make for tea And when I looked at why, it wasn't really willpower at all, and it wasn't about the specific food. It was that I'd arrived home already nourished and steady instead of a ravenous and depleted person facing a pile of decisions at the exact moment I had the least capacity to make them. And yes, the lunch did end up being more balanced because it wasn't just a cheese sandwich all the time. But I'd also removed a whole cluster of hard evening choices by making one easy choice the night before. The biscuits weren't a willpower failure. They were a decision of fatigue and low blood glucose, in need of comfort decision that essentially solved a problem of feeling really heightened and stressed. But cooking that extra meal the night before solved this problem without me even realizing that's exactly what I'd done. So here's that pattern again, closing the loop earlier when you have more capacity so your tired future self doesn't have to And now this is something that I really don't want you to miss because without it, everything I've just said could easily curdle into something rigid and unkind and that would be the opposite of what I intend here. So the whole point of removing a decision is to serve you. The moment the structure stops serving you and starts running you, the moment you've become a slave to your own system, it's no longer doing its job. Our habits, our routines, our rituals, they're meant to hold us, not imprison us. So if your if-then has become more of a stick to beat yourself with, we've taken a wrong turn somewhere And I'll show you what I mean with how I handle my own podcast recording, because I think it's probably a good example of pre-deciding in a way that gets to stay kind. So I have a recording day, but my energy varies, as does everybody's, and midlife listeners, I think you probably know what I mean. But rather than forcing myself to record at one fixed time and feeling like a failure if I'm not in the mood or don't quite have the energy, I always have two slots booked, an earlier one and a later one, and I have a simple if-then planned. If I wake up raring to go, I record in the early slot, and then the rest of my day, including that later slot, gets to be more restful. And if I need a slower start to my day, a longer breakfast, some gentle low-energy admin, then I take that, and I record in the later slot instead. So there's something important to remember here. Both options are already decided, so I'm never forcing myself to perform when I'm not ready. But I'm also never carrying that nagging open loop of, "I'm behind. I should have done it by now. Why haven't I recorded yet?" Because whichever way it goes, it was already the plan. There's no failure available to me here. A pre-decided, a flexible structure, and the flexibility is the whole point. And that's the difference between a structure that frees you and a structure that traps you. A good pre-decision leaves room for you to be a human being with variable energy. It removes the deciding without removing the compassion So if you'd actually like to try this, and I hope you do because it's one of those things that sounds almost too simple until you feel the difference. But this is how I would start, and I really would just keep it small for now. Again, make it unfailable. And of course, don't try to systemize your entire life this week. That's often just decision fatigue wearing a different hat. So instead, pick one thing, one recurring decision that you notice you keep having to make over and over, one that maybe is draining you a bit. Uh, maybe it's the gym. Maybe it's what to cook for dinner. Maybe it's when you answer your emails, or when you take your supplements, or how you handle that one text you keep leaving unread. Then make an if-then in advance in a calm moment. If this, then that. Write it down if that helps. And then, this is the whole point, stop leaving it as an open decision. Let it be decided and notice over the next week or so whether closing that loop gives you back a little more energy than you expected. One loop, that's all it is. See how it feels and go from there So as we close, I just want to finish by bringing this back to where everything on this podcast eventually comes home to, because you might reasonably be wondering what a conversation about if/then plans and batch cook lunches is doing on a podcast called Rooted in Presence But there is a connection, and it's the thing I would love you to take away. Every one of those open loops, every undecided thing quietly running in the background, is a little piece of you that isn't here. It's off in the future negotiating with the gym, fretting about dinner, and you can only be so present in your actual life, in the conversation you're having, in the evening with your family, in the walk, in the cup of tea, while a dozen tabs are open in the back of your mind demanding to be decided So closing those loops isn't really about productivity at all, not deep down. It's really about freeing up the part of you that's been running background tasks so that you can actually be here, present in your own life. That's what all the deciding once is really in service of. Not getting more done for the sake of it to be the most productive person, but getting the noise to quieten enough so that you can be where you actually are. So this week, close one loop, decide one thing, and notice what it feels like to carry a little less. And if you'd like some support building this kind of gentle, sustainable structure into your own life, the kind that serves you rather than runs you, that's exactly the sort of thing I do with people through coaching and through the community at Still Space Hull. You'll find everything you need at stillspacehull.com, and the coaching side at carlykillen.com, with all the details in the show notes. So until next time, may you meet yourself with compassion, walk with presence, and remember, you already have everything you need