Stop Tiring Your Brain With Small Decisions to Concentrate on the Big Stuff

We've all been hearing about this decision fatigue that causes us to tire, produce mediocre work an make unsound decisions. The simple way to combat this is to rid your life of the many small decisions you make in your day, like what to eat and what to wear, with the help of routines.

Alexa Von Tobel is the CEO of LearnVest, financial planning service. Her day includes eating the same thing for lunch, usually while multitasking.

"Since the beginning of LearnVest, I've never left the office for food. I eat the same thing every single day [an apple, almonds, yogurt, a salad...], and I never sit still to eat a meal," she told Fast Company. "My ultimate goal is to create operating systems for myself that allow me to think as little as possible about the silly decisions you can make all day long--like what to eat or where we should meet--so I can focus on making real decisions. Because mental energy is a finite quantity. You can only spend so much time on the really critical decisions that move your company forward."

She uses this routine to allow her brain to think about the important aspects of her business, rather than spending her mental energy on things that don't really matter to her.