As a mom of littles, I’m not just making decisions for myself, I’m making so many of theirs too, and the decision fatigue can be draining! I used to have such a hard time trusting my own decisions… I’d go back and forth and second guess myself constantly (for a variety of reasons I won’t get into here). Over the years I’ve become so much more confident, especially as a mom. Anthony has always been the “just make a decision and stick with it” type, and being around that steadiness helped me trust myself more. Now once we decide something, I stick with it instead of going back and forth with “wait, are you sure?”
Something that has helped me so much is having default decisions. These are things I decided once (some more intentionally than others), like what we eat when there’s no plan or what I wear when I can’t figure out an outfit, and now they’re more of a habit. Some are small daily routines and some are bigger choices about holidays and money, but either way, we already know how we approach them.
Here are 39 of mine (this list could have kept going, I didn’t realize how many of the same things I do constantly).
1. Halloween costumes that aren’t scary. This year Poppy picked a butterfly and Elliott picked Lightning McQueen, and both are so cute for pretend play after Halloween is over too! (Last year Poppy was a horse and Elliott was a dinosaur and they still run around the house in them playing) I’m between these options for Clive: either a chicken, highland cow or this pumpkin that Elliott wore before. All so cute!
2. We treat our credit card like a debit card. We followed Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace class to pay off our credit cards and student loan debt, so I know he would NOT approve of this one (sorry Dave!). I get what he means that it can be a slippery slope (having a credit card is easier to spend than using cash or a debit card where you can see the money coming out), but we’re really disciplined with it. We only use it for the points and pay it off in full every month.
3. When we walk in the door, the first thing is hands washed and nose spray for everyone. We wash our hands with soap, and the nose spray has propolis and oregano in it to help clear out whatever we picked up while we were out. Everyone has their own bottle and I mark them with their initials so nobody shares the same one.
4. We only drink filtered water, never from plastic bottles. If I was starting over and had to pick only one change, this would be it. We drink so much water every day, so it’s an easy way to cut down on things like microplastics and what’s in tap water without changing much else. The filters we use are third party tested and share their results, and when we travel I bring a bottle with a built in filter (it’s saved me so much money bc I don’t have to buy water on the go). This is the size that I got for Jadyn’s dorm. Every time I fill up, electrolytes and trace minerals go in too.
5. My go-to outfit is jeans, a white tee and a black leather jacket. Over the years I’ve been more drawn to a classic look and this always feels fresh to me. I’m not one to wear much color… I used to try to talk myself into it. Like should I be wearing more color?? Now I know what I feel confident in and I don’t overthink it. It works for day or night and I like a slimmer leather jacket like this one or this one because it makes the whole thing feel more put together. For white long sleeve white tee (wearing it in size L in this post here. Or my short sleeve, both 100% cotton. Jeans I like a slim and straight leg high rise.
6. Anything I don’t want to forget goes into a voice note. I set this up once, and now anytime something pops in my head (whether it’s a to-do or something I want to look into later) I just talk into my phone and it sends me a reminder to follow up on it. Then I decide if it goes on the calendar or what the next step is during review. I don’t have to stop and figure it out in the moment, so I can do what I call a “mind dump” and let it go. I shared how to set it up in this post here. I LOVE this!
7. A rainy day means a Christmas movie and the fireplace, even in Oct! I got this candle with that in mind (beeswax and essential oils with a wood burning wick for the crackle, it’s so cozy!). This is more the default for a rainy weekend day, during the week we don’t have our TV rolled out.