How to Set Up Your Home So You Don’t Have to Think So Much

Inside: how to reduce or simplify those thousand tiny decisions you make every single day.

The bad news? Everyone asks you everything, and the decision fatigue is slowly draining the life out of you. What’s for dinner? Can I have a snack? Do I have dress shoes that fit? What is Sarah bringing to that birthday party on Saturday?

The good news? A lot of these decisions can be made once, delegated, or simplified. If you’re tired and not sure why, you need to read this. And then actually do it.

Food Decisions

Food decisions are especially painful because there’s deciding what to make and then there’s making it. Combining them into one task is overwhelming, which is why meal planning, even for the smallest of things, is an absolute must. “Meal planning” is too vague and still is just tons and tons of decisions. Let’s break this down even more.

Make a meal plan and repeat it

Do you make 4,000 different dinners over the course of your life? Most likely not. You probably have about 20 to 30 greatest hits that repeat in various degrees of frequency. That’s a good thing. Make a one-month meal plan that repeats some of your favorites once or twice, that has some of your lesser-loved ones thrown in there once, and just repeat that plan till the day you die.

Assign each day a dinner category

If the above method is too rigid, there is still hope for you. Every day of the week can be a dinner category that forces variety and eliminates decision fatigue. Taco Tuesday is already done for you by the rest of the world but you can give each day a similar theme.

Keep a “next meal” list on the fridge

Want even more flexibility? Just have a running list of meals that you have the ingredients for in your house and that are sort of on your mind. When you make it, cross it off, move on to the next.

Make the same breakfast on school days

Yes you need a breakfast schedule too. Try to have a couple defaults that your kids can prepare themselves, like cereal or yogurt. Then maybe once a week you make something more complicated. The idea is you either defer that decision to them and say “Here are your options,” or you make the decision ahead of time and they take it or leave it.

Keep default lunches

Same with lunch. This is especially important when you are home all day. We cannot be wandering the kitchen at noon once everyone is hungry, praying that a frozen pizza reveals itself. 5-7 lunch options are fine. I am even stricter and we have three. Sandwiches on Monday and Wednesday, leftovers Tuesday and Thursday, quesadillas on Friday. Amen.

Create a snack basket

A child saying “I’m hungry” is annoying not because you’re annoyed that they’re hungry but because they’ve disbursed every decision to you. Can they eat? When can they eat? What can they eat? It’s too much. We can barely think of when or what to eat ourselves. This is why you want to have acceptable snack choices available That they can have at a set time per day. My kids can have a snack when they get home from school and that’s it.

Keep a short list of emergency dinners

So you were out all day. Your rotating plan didn’t come to fruition. Now what? That’s okay. You don’t have to stare off into space wondering whether it’s okay to get takeout. You need to have, ahead of time, a list of emergency dinners. Make the annoying decision when you’re not in a hurry. Frozen pizza works. We also live frozen orange chicken from Costco and it’s totally fine to make one of these emergency dinners take out. Know your favorite places and what you get and know ahead of time that there’s a place down the road that you can get take out from in a hurry. No big deal. It’s the stress of deciding last minute and feeling unprepared that’s bothering you

Set a default grocery day

Oh do we need to go to the store? What are we out of? Let me rummage around and ask everyone a million questions or even worse stare at my notes app and try to think of something. No thank you. Once a week, every week, go to the grocery store.

(And if you can, try to order online. It saves your order history really easily. You can look throughout what you always get and just get more of it.)

Clothing and Laundry Decisions

These can be very stressful because by the time you realize you don’t have something, it’s too late. No time to watch and try a load of laundry or, heaven forbid, order a dress and hope it arrives in time

Create a basic daily uniform

When I find something I like whether it’s sweatpants, leggings, jogging pants, t-shirts, jeans, I buy multiples. I have basically three types of outfits:

• For when I’m staying home, leggings and a T-shirt
• For when I’m leaving the house but for nothing fancy, jeans and a T-shirt
• For when I’m going somewhere more social (church, a birthday party, whatever), a dress.

The thing is I have the same leggings, the same jeans, the same shirts. I just mix and match. Decision easy.

have special occasion things before you need them

Everyone, your kids included, should have a nice dress that they can wear to a funeral, a nice coat they can wear to church, etc. Having to get these types of things at the last minute is one of the most stressful tasks possible because there are so many decisions to make and they all have to be made rapidly. Just have them on hand all the time. They are perfect candidates to buy at thrift stores.

Do one load of laundry every day at the same time

No more deciding when to do laundry, when to start it, whether you need to do a load. Just do one every day, preferably when you wake up so it’s folded and put away before lunchtime. One last thing hanging over your head.

Give each laundry day a category

Take the daily load to the next level by removing even the smallest decision, which is “which load should I do?”. You can assign something for each day of the week such as sheets on Mondays, kids clothes on Tuesdays, darks on Wednesdays, etc.

Cleaning Decisions

Cleaning is one of those things where planning and deciding is fun, but the doing is terrible. Hence everyone’s love for spreadsheets and printables.

Create a kitchen closing routine

When dinner is done we need to know what to do and who’s doing it. In our house I do the dishes. The kids do everything else:

• putting away leftovers
• cleaning the counter
• sweeping the floor
• taking out the trash

You don’t have to do it that way, obviously. But it’s best to decide now how you do it and then every night it’s a simple matter of executing.

Make a Cleaning Routine That Works With Your Brain

You can clean a little bit every day and focus on what’s dirtiest, you can have a set routine, you can do whatever you want. The most important thing to do is have a routine and just… start. If the routine doesn’t work for you, do another method.

The absolute worst choice is to have no system at all and have to think about WHAT to do every day.

Start a Basket for Kids Stuff

You were not born to wonder where all yours kids junk should go. The only decision you need to make is whether it’s bugging you. If it is, put it in the basket (ours lives at the bottom of the stairs). Now it’s their decision to deal with and you don’t have to look at it.

Kids and Family Routines

Oh the little darlings. So many questions, so many things all offloaded to your brain. This is all fine and normal, but part of them growing up is learning. how to decide things for themselves.

Make a default after-school rhythm

Do not decide what happens after school every single day. Decide once.

Kids come home tired, hungry, loud, and full of requests. This is not the time to invent a beautiful afternoon plan. Have a normal order of events and stick to it most days.

For example:

• snack
• unpack backpacks
• homework or reading
• outside time
• chores
• screens, if allowed
• dinner

It does not have to be strict down to the minute. It just needs to answer the question, “What happens next?”

Set screen-time rules once

Screen time will drain the life out of you if the rules are different every day.

Decide the basics one time:

• when screens are allowed
• how long they last
• what has to be done first
• which shows, games, or apps are okay
• what makes screen time end

Then stop reopening the case every afternoon.

Create default bedtime routines

For little kids, it might be bath, pajamas, teeth, books, prayers, lights out. For older kids, it might be shower, backpack packed, clothes out, reading, lights out.

The exact routine does not matter as much as the repetition. When everyone knows the order, you don’t have to keep deciding what comes next or reminding people from scratch.

Errands, Shopping, and Planning

The little extras of life that like to dominate your brain power and throw you off course. Take back control.

Make a rotating errand day

Pick one day for errands and let things collect until then. Library returns, post office, pharmacy, returns, donations, random pickups, all of it. Unless something is truly urgent, it waits for errand day.

This keeps errands from breaking up every day of the week. It also gives you one simple answer when you think, “When am I going to do that?” You already know. Errand day.

Decide what you always buy

Pick your regular toilet paper, dish soap, shampoo, toothpaste, sandwich bread, coffee, snacks, laundry detergent, and paper towels. Buy the same ones most of the time.

This does not mean you can never try anything new. It just means you are not standing in the aisle comparing 14 kinds of trash bags when your brain is already tired. Some things can just be your things.

Keep a gift bin

Last-minute gifts create a ridiculous amount of stress.

Keep a small bin or shelf with easy gifts you can grab when something comes up. Birthday parties, hostess gifts, teacher gifts, neighbor gifts, thank-you gifts, all of it.

Good things to keep on hand:

• candles
• gift cards (small amounts for Target, Starbucks, etc.)
• small toys
• children’s books
• blank cards
• gift bags
• nice soap
• stickers or art supplies
• little seasonal items

Mindset

Going deep.

Use if-then rules for predictable problems

If the same little problems keep coming up, make a rule for them.

For example:

• If dinner falls apart, we make eggs or frozen pizza.
• If it rains, we do quiet indoor time.
• If the kids ask for snacks, they choose from the snack basket.
• If we are running late, breakfast is toast in the car.
• If the house feels overwhelming, we start with dishes and laundry.
• If someone forgets sports gear, it goes by the door the night before next time.

If-then rules are helpful because they remove the drama.

Make one decision that covers many future decisions

We’ve already covered some of these: A meal plan is one decision that solves dinner for the week. A grocery day is one decision that solves when to shop. A laundry schedule is one decision that solves what load to start. A bedtime routine is one decision that solves what happens next every night.

But for your own life, there are probably more!

Let Them Decide

Let your husband decide what time he is leaving, what he wants for lunch, or whether the grass needs cutting. Let older kids manage their own homework order, sports bag, or birthday gift ideas when they can.

If someone else is capable of deciding it, let them decide. Even if they do it differently than you would. Especially then.