I recently attended an incredible restorative retreat and the presenter from Tidy Tammy made a profound statement, clutter is just a delayed decision. I invite you to look around your own space and all the items or pieces that you’ve thought many, many times about and yet, here it is, still sitting. Not only is the item taking up space in your area, it is cluttering your mind, too. Think about it, every time you see the item again, you have that same process going through your mind. You’ve simply delayed a decision on what to do about it.

This got me to thinking about how many times we delay decisions in our lives. Whether or not to attend a wedding, what gift to give someone, keeping an item that never really gave us energy, hitting send on an e-mail, going to the gym…I could go on and on and on. By not making a decision, we are clutter up physical, emotional, spiritual and mental space. 

I started to ask myself why. Why don’t we make the decision? Why are we delaying it?

I came up with five reasons I tend to delay making decisions:

• Perfectionism
• Worrying about offending someone
• Avoidance (yes, I realize all of the reasons could lead to avoidance. In this case, I am talking about specifically avoiding something surrounding the decision—an emotion, a perceived outcome, etc.)
• Decision Fatigue—I’ve actually been making so many decisions, I am flat out tired and have not restored my tank enough to apply good skill sets
• Fear of making the “wrong” decision

I am also extremely aware that NOT making a decision is actually increasing my stress, clogging up my brain space and ultimately increasing the reasons or amplifying the ones already there on the why I am delaying in the first place. 

Notice a vicious cycle here?

So, what can we do about this? How can we move ourselves towards making decisions?

Here are a few ideas that seem to be working for me:

• Lean into my core values. What’s important to me? What are the core values this decision is impacting?
• Break decisions into small sections—similar to pieces of a puzzle. If the BIG decision is too much, what are the smaller decisions within the big one? If an entire room is too much to tackle, start with one box. 
• Build resiliency, mindful awareness and self-awareness skills. These come in handy when making decisions and are also restoring us to be ready for the next one.
• Take breaks. Decision fatigue is real. Take breaks as needed. Use a timer if needed. 
• Ask yourself: What am I saying yes to and what am I saying no to? This is a great question when making life decisions!

I hope this has been useful for you. There are so many benefits to developing our muscles around making decisions. I’d love to hear about your favorite strategies!