My Kale Salad Jeans
My Kale Salad Jeans
dropping balls and deciding once -- more ways to reduce decision fatigue
Last week, I wrote about my current hyper-fixation on kale salads. I felt pretty silly waxing rhapsodically about kale and how it has made my life a thousand times better over the last year but after posting, ya’ll said, “HEY ME TOO!!!!”
At the same time, I branched out for lunch and regretted it ENORMOUSLY.
Then, my mother-in-law came to visit for the weekend and we ate kale salad as part of a meal every day. She asked enough questions about the recipe and my methods that I feel confident she was a fan, too. Hyperfixation meals forever!
I think a big reason that the kale salad resonated with so many of you is that we’re all trying to simplify things! Adults with jobs have a lot going on. We have to feed ourselves, dress ourselves, use our brains at work all day, and maintain some semblance of a home to live in which requires various ongoing chores. That’s a lot! If you have a pet, children, a time or energy-intensive hobby, that’s even more! Just to exist in this modern world, we are all juggling so many balls. In order to survive (or perhaps, gasp, even thrive!?), we need to let some balls drop.
I am actively trying to figure out which of my balls I can drop — as you may have gathered by some of my recent writing:
Right now, I’m dropping the ball that holds “exciting and varied meal prep.” Leaning into my kale salad enables me to focus on juggling other balls — going on dates with my husband, learning to parent a toddler, getting enough sleep, running, reading for pleasure, surviving the daily grind.
Decide once
Another way to think about this is with The Lazy Genius principle of “decide once". I don’t think Kendra created this principle but I love how she frames it and has made it attainable for me. The idea is to make a single decision about some element of your life and stick with that decision until it no longer serves you. Whenever you come to that decision point, you don’t have to use your brain because you’ve already made the decision! When I come to lunch, I don’t need to use my brain because I’ve already decided on my kale salad.
Various sources say that the average person makes ~35,000 decisions every single day. It seems prudent to do what we can to reduce that number and save some brain power, even just a little bit.
Another way I am deciding once is with my clothes.
It was thanks to you all that I realized how well my kale salad paradigm fits with getting dressed! One friend said, “No one is criticizing the tech bros for wearing the same jeans and t-shirt every day… and they’re using that mental energy elsewhere.” AMEN.
Kale salad jeans
It’s been almost two years since my body was familiar to me. Months and months of being pregnant, postpartum, and breastfeeding have totally upended how I feel in my own skin and the way every single article of clothing I own - and have newly purchased - fits (more on this another time). This has created the opportunity for my brain to stress every time I have to get dressed.
But sometimes, I find something that works and I wear it on repeat until it absolutely must be washed. I didn’t consider this as a mental shortcut before but instead would hem and haw at my closet before pulling on the same pair of jeans. But now, I’m deciding once and dropping the ball that holds the rest of my closet. No more hemming and hawing!
For as long as they serve me, no more branching out. I’m sticking with the jeans that are comfortable, fit my body, and work for 99.9% of occasions because I live in Seattle.
What balls are you dropping in this season? Where are you deciding once? I’d love to hear how you’re simplifying your days and easing decision-fatigue.
Hi! I’m Liz. Thanks for being here and reading my journals on the journey. If you’re new, learn a bit more about me and this space here and consider subscribing to my weeklyish posts. You can choose which types of posts to receive via email and if you read in the Substack app, you can choose to get notifications in the app instead of emails with new posts.
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All of this resonates DEEPLY. Years ago (pre-child; former freelancing life), I subscribed to a CSA box and so many of my staple meals to cook were from Vegan Yum Yum, which is a fabulous cookbook of "decadent (but doable)" recipes. Most things in it took me at least an hour or more to make--we're talking homemade sauces, from-scratch gnocchi and elaborate casseroles and from-scratch samosas made with spices I ground myself with a mortar and pestle--and at the time, I couldn't even imagine why anyone would eat crappy convenience food if/when this sort of wonderful "slow food" was instead an option. Plus, cooking was fun!
This is all so hilariously far from my reality now. My husband and I use our Instant Pot twice a week to cook chicken breasts and a vat of fresh pinto beans, and I make a weekly batch of Spanish rice. The giant Tupperwares of those staple foods are pretty much what we then eat out of all week. The vegetables I eat are all either Costco salad mixes or microwaveable bags of frozen broccoli. Once I stopped judging myself for the boringness of our meals these days, I found this all to be deeply liberating and time-freeing.
I appreciate the inspiration to adopt a similar approach with my clothes! I'm totally a jeans, T-shirt and hoodie kind of girl by nature, and have probably wasted so much mental energy over the years trying to force myself to do something more interesting with my appearance. Who am I trying to impress anyway?!