Decision fatigue: how to develop systems and processes to make progress
Making business related decisions can feel heavy and carry a lot of fear. We can get stuck on making the RIGHT decision. Not all of that fear we feel is based in reality. Decisions aren’t right or wrong. They’re just decisions. And if you don’t like it you can change your mind.
- Ericka Thomas
Transcript
Decision fatigue.
Have you heard of this? Have you experienced it? I didn’t really know this was a thing until I heard the story about Steve Jobs black turtleneck. If you hadn’t heard that story, he always wore a black turtleneck because it was one less decision he had to make.
After I heard that, I noticed the inordinate amount of brain power and time it takes me to decide what to wear everyday. So I totally get it. But I love clothes and shoes so I doubt I’ll be switching to a black turtleneck anytime soon.
Entrepreneurs have to make a lot of decisions everyday especially if we employ people beyond ourselves. Solopreneurs have an added maybe different layer because we are our only employee. We only have to make the decisions about what we are going to do from day to day in our business. Sounds simple. But every little thing becomes one of those decisions. Every word we write to everything we buy, every course we take. This is different from being an employee.
If I don’t want to do social media posts for a week I don’t have to and since I’m also the boss there might be repercussions in my analytics but I’m not going to fire myself. Probably. At least not yet. If I make a mistake I can learn from it and move on. But I can’t lose my job unless I quit.
If my business was the only thing I had to make decisions on, it would not be a problem. But it isn’t. Most female solopreneurs, especially in the fitness industry often are doing it because they want freedom and flexibility in their family. Maybe they’re married. Maybe they have kids in school. Maybe they want to be able to travel when and where they want. Whatever the rest of their life looks like they do have one outside of their business. That doubles the decisions. And then for many of us this is a side hustle, at least in the beginning. Which adds more decisions to the mix.
Back in the early 2000’s We bought a brand new home and were able to make a lot of the finishing choices along the way. Looking back, that was the first time I remember getting to that decision fatigue. Every little detail down to the color of the outlet covers. At first it’s fun then it gets exhausting.
Anytime you’re building something new whether it's a house or a business there's always a lot of decisions to be made. You’re creating something from scratch that hasn’t existed before. It gives you a real appreciation for how babies get born doesn’t it?
The process of setting up a new business gives you an opportunity to create, test and set up systems, policies and organization to lighten the decision making load and save you time. If we can do it in our business we can do it in our personal life. I would argue we need to do it in both.
Wouldn’t it be great if we could automate our holiday decorating with the push of a button? Lights go up on November 24, Tree on 25th Cards go out December 1, Cookies decorated December 5. Sounds amazing.
We can’t usually do that kind of automation. But we can set up business systems to help us so we can be more present during the holidays and avoid all the decision fatigue that can be wrapped up in the season.
Here’s a couple systems that I really recommend. I am not an affiliate. These are what I use.
Later.com and Canva as my Social media scheduler. I’ve also used Tailwind in the past. If you only use one social platform you don’t need this. You can take one post and send it to 3,4 5 social platforms all at once. Scheduling in my personal life I have had to resort to keeping my calendar up to date. I say it that way because I used to be able to keep all of it in my head. And the only reason that worked was because most of it was routine. I don’t have a set routine yet. Although I’m getting there. I sync that calendar with Acuity through my website for clients and classes. My husband and I share another app calendar tool called Maple where we can share grocery lists, special events that each of us has so they don’t get lost in the shuffle.
Google docs, sheets and slides. This is where I do all my writing and then copy and paste to batch content from podcast transcripts, event outlines and social posts. It’s where I do my taxes now too. I have tried several accounting platforms,software and systems and most of them were so complicated and way too expensive for the amount of business that I do. So I went to an old school spreadsheet for tracking expenses.
Emails - Convertkit email marketing. Again I can create email broadcasts and sequences that can go out automatically and collect new emails automatically. Mail chimp is another that many people use, the difference is only in personal preference. This is important because communication is a necessary system.
Squarespace is my website platform and online studio platform Hey marvelous and I can update it myself anytime from anywhere and I can schedule my podcast show notes to match the release date. Both of these make setting up my shop almost effortless. There are several integrations within these including zoom, and stripe but having them all in one place is essential. It’s basically my virtual office space.
So you can probably see a theme here of lots of scheduling capability. But that’s because I don’t want to be constantly thinking about social media marketing. Scheduling makes space in my brain. And as far as what I do, being consistent with content creation for marketing is one of the most important things. But at the same time I want the flexibility to take a few weeks off every once in a while. That’s where preplanning and getting ahead comes in handy.
In the fitness industry one of the hardest things to do is take time off. It is usually a dollars for hours kind of a gig and so if you aren’t there in the studio in person to teach you aren’t getting paid. Not only that but it is very difficult if not impossible to find subs. As some of you might know I recently opened a brick and mortar home office/studio called the Loft Yoga and Wellness. I teach regularly, in studio and live streamed classes from there. Every week. It’s just me. I don’t employ any other instructors. If I can’t be there, there's no class. So if I want time off or if I get sick I need some kind of system in place so I can do that. I knew all that going in.
Systems like these take pre planning and pre planning requires decision making. That’s much easier to do when you aren’t under the gun and when you know what you want. It’s no different really than meal planning. When you plan a week of meals you have all the ingredients and then if you want to change your mind and go for dinner you can. It’s like my friends Carri Uranga and Sarah Walsh from Drishti YTT say, through form there is freedom. That’s what we want in our business and life. FREEDOM. So we need to create more form, more structure, to get more of that. Not only having systems set up but also policies in place that you can be transparent about for your clients.
For example, what happens if they no show, what happens if you no show, what’s your refund policy. If you have a membership that you have to pause for an emergency what happens then? Policies like no classes when schools are closed for weather. Or no class the week between Christmas and new year. These things are what terms and conditions are for. You could plan out your own weeks of vacation a year in advance with this in mind.
One of the things that always frustrated me about teaching in a corporate gym setting was the holiday low attendance. And they never would change the schedule to reflect the Holidays. So trainers would bust their tail to get there to teach and there would be no students. Now that I have my own place I can make these kinds of changes.
One of the benefits of being a hybrid studio is that I can livestream and I can offer video content when I’m out of town. This is my plan for this year. It’s the first year for me in this space and so it is an experiment, but as friends often remind me it’s important that we as coaches model healthy work life balance.
These are big boundary decisions and they need to be made in advance with a clear head, not when you’re in a state of exhaustion and collapse.
What I have found helpful in moments when I'm overwhelmed and confused by too many options is that there really is no wrong decision. We really just have to make one and follow through. Often we know which one we want but we can get distracted by all the should’s in our head.
Having a decision making process that works for you or finding a trusted friend or coach to bounce ideas off of for clarity can be ideal. That’s what accountability partners are for and sometimes coaches are even better. Even if it’s only a pros and cons list. Writing things down is a great way to clarify them.
So what are some of the decisions you see coming up that you can make right now for next year? Maybe hiring an accountant for taxes? Maybe investing in some support software? Maybe hiring a small business coach to help you untangle strategy? Hint hint.
Making business related decisions can feel heavy and carry a lot of fear. We can get stuck on making the RIGHT decision. Not all of that fear we feel is based in reality. Decisions aren’t right or wrong. They’re just decisions. And if you don’t like it you can change your mind.
And I guess that’s really my point about decision fatigue and overwhelm. It’s changeable. This is your life, your business. Your reasons. When we remember what those reasons are, what our core values are, the big why for working the way we do, for ourselves, it opens the door to creative ways of looking at things. There’s a great book called Ask for more: 10 questions to negotiate anything by Alexandra Carter that talks about decision making as a negotiation and that in order to be effective in finding direction we need to first clearly define the problem, know exactly what we need and how we feel about it. I’m re-reading it. So when we feel stuck maybe it’s because we need to figure those things out first.
So take this in the spirit in which it was offered, from someone who is right there in the arena with you. And know I’m here to help if that’s the decision you want to make.
Thanks for listening to The Work IN. If you like what you heard and want to learn more or explore ways to get more clarity in your fitness business you can find links to my year long coaching program called Clarity in the show notes at savagegracecoaching.com/theworkin
Hey there!
I’m your host Ericka Thomas. I'm a resilience coach and fit-preneur offering an authentic, actionable realistic approach to personal and professional balance for coaches in any format.
Savage Grace Coaching is all about bringing resilience and burnout recovery. Especially for overwhelmed entrepreneurs, creators and coaches in the fitness industry.
Schedule a free consultation call to see if my brand of actionable accountability is right for you and your business.