Volume #30: 🎯 Take a Break from Making Decisions

 📬 Not a Flow State newsletter subscriber yet? Sign up for FREE here.

It’s time for the July Conscious Productivity #Goal!

The theme this month is time off in The Flow State. If taking a vacation has ever left you more stressed than before you left, you know why planning is important!

Whether you’re taking a vacation, staycation, or simply a weekend off, planning how you’ll spend your time off can help you relax more deeply - and come back ready for more when Monday rolls around.

Now, planning doesn’t mean that you need some kind of activity checklist for every minute of every day off.

• Brunch? Check.

• Sight-seeing? Check.

• Smiling selfies? Check.

• Historic appreciation? Check.

• Post cards? Check.

…Enjoying yourself? 🥴

With each of these activities comes countless decisions (when to eat? where to eat? what to order? etc.), which multiply exponentially with the number of people you’re responsible for. As you slog through a checklist that’s supposed to bring you joy and relaxation, you might end up wondering why you left the comfort of your bed in the first place.

(Exaggerating… but you get me, right?)

Fortunately, there’s another approach to vacationing that doesn’t involve high-intensity scheduling.

Instead of planning activities for your time off, focus on truly enjoying the freedom and spontaneity that time off allows you by planning to take a break from making decisions.

Before we dive in to taking a break from decision-making, share your experience with us! We want to know more about how you make decisions ⬇️

Conscious Productivity #Goals: Take a break from making decisions.

Researchers estimate that the average person makes 35,000 decisions every day - unconscious and conscious - from what you’ll eat for breakfast to how long you scroll on your mobile phone.

It turns out that there’s actually a limit to how many decisions you can make before things go sideways. Making repeated decisions of any kind can lead to decision fatigue; an impairment in judgement and behavioral control that occurs as a consequence of repeated acts of decision-making.

Maybe you’re familiar with it?

It’s why Steve Jobs only wore black turtle necks, the parents in Yes Day found themselves in a car wash with windows down wearing snorkelling gear, and yes, it’s also why vacations can stress you out when you over-plan them.

Some of the symptoms of decision fatigue include:

• Procrastination: Putting off decisions (or avoiding certain people or situations altogether) is a common response to decision fatigue. Avoiding vacation-planning altogether means you don’t have to decide what you’ll do with your time off, right?

• Impulsiveness: After making complex decisions all day, you might be less careful with other choices, like stopping at a drive-thru for dinner, overspending online, or overlooking obvious cognitive biases

• Burnout: Decision fatigue can be physically, mentally, and emotionally draining. This can lead to burnout, which can have serious long-term health consequences.

• Brain fog: Suddenly struggling to finish sentences? Have you forgotten names or got distracted during conversations lately? Decision fatigue could be causing mental confusion.

• Irritability & overwhelm: Did you just lose patience with your best friend for asking where you want to go for lunch tomorrow? Yes, that might be decision fatigue, too!

• Overwhelm: Feeling like there's no room left in your head - let alone your schedule - for everything you're doing? Overwhelm is a problem in itself, and can also signal decision fatigue.

So what can you do to rest your hard-working brain when you go on vacation?

Make your most important decisions before you leave for vacation, dial the thinking down, and enjoy whatever comes your way 😎

Conscious Productivity #Goals: Take a break from making decisions.

Want to steal our #productivitygoals? Please do!! Tag us on your social platform of choice @simplish, or @simplish.life to share the ❤️

Be well, enjoy your time off, and do good work!