Does the word “routine” make you think of stuck-in-the-mud people who do the same boring things day after day? I’m with you, and that’s why I try not to be too “routinized.” But a recent article made me reconsider my aversion to routines.

Decision Fatigue  According to the article by Dr. Mark Hyman, routines lessen “decision fatigue,” i.e., the over-exertion of time and effort required to make good decisions for yourself. For example, if you have a lunchtime exercise routine, you don’t have to spend precious mental capacity worrying about whether or not to hit the gym at noon. You just do it, because it’s your routine.

Mealtimes can involve A LOT of decision fatigue, starting with the most aggravating decision of all: What should I make? Then there is figuring out what should go with it, do you have all the right ingredients, do you need to stop by the store, will everyone like it, will it taste okay, is it nutritious enough, do you have enough time, is it too hard . . . .

No wonder we’re exhausted by the time we finally start pulling a meal together!

The Quick and Brilliant Fix
Get in a routine of planning your meals, whether it’s every couple days, every few days or once a week.

More Science in Support of Planning A couple weeks ago, I shared Nataly Kagan’s brain science discovery that explained the guaranteed success of meal planning. Dr. Hyman’s decision fatigue insight is yet one more piece of scientific support for the invaluable habit of thinking ahead and planning.

Meal planning works so well because it “frontloads” the decisions for several meals into one short session instead of fatiguing you every day with those decisions. Better yet, planning before meal time means you experience a lot less decision fatigue to begin with. The reason: you aren’t stressed and pressured to make a bunch of difficult decisions while racing to feed the ravenous souls at your table–including yourself!

With a plan, all the fatiguing decisions have been made when you race into the kitchen. All that’s left is to execute the plan and comparatively speaking, that’s the easy part since we know that:

The hardest part about cooking is deciding what to cook!