How I solved 5pm decision fatigue

If you haven’t subscribed to me yet substackThis is where I get a little more personal – writing from the heart about self-care, motherhood, wellness, and everything in between. My community loved this post, so I wanted to share an excerpt with you here.

It was 5 o’clock in the evening on Tuesday. I picked up the kids from school, dropped them off to play golf, powered through a backlog of emails (including a very important response that just had to go out that day), finished a blog post, wrote an Instagram caption, and went back to golf. As soon as they got into the car, I heard this:

What’s for dinner?

This was what was going through my mind at that moment: We’d ordered takeout the night before, so it felt like a cop-out. My suggestion of “breakfast for dinner” was met with chorus. not again (fair point). And the last thing I wanted to do was fight traffic at the grocery store and start eating from scratch.

Honestly, sometimes the thought of making something for dinner feels like too much night after night after night (Anyone else?). And here’s the thing: I really love to cook, and the kitchen is one of my happiest places. Putting on a playlist, pouring a glass of wine, making something out of nothing. This is where I get a lot of my inspiration and happiness. So the fact that I was sitting there getting angry about my kids being hungry felt like solving a problem.

But I realized: It’s not really about the dinner. It’s about decision fatigue. The invisible mental load of reinventing the wheel every night — different moods, different priorities, keeping track of what we do and don’t have in the fridge — is already on top of the entire day. By 5 p.m., my brain is on fire, and sometimes the last thing it can handle is another open-ended question.

So, instead of yelling, Find out yourself!! In a vacuum, I did something about it. I created a system. I know, I know, “the system” sounds rigid and no fun, so let me clarify: It’s really just a simple framework that does the thinking for you ahead of time, so that by the time dinner time comes, the decisions have already been made. This way, you are free to enjoy the creativity of preparing a good meal and enjoying it with your people.

This is not meal prepping or meal planning. It’s a rhythm — and once you get it, weeknight dinners start to feel less like a daily scourge and more like something you can actually enjoy again.

In this post, I’m pulling back the curtain on:

• Dinner recipes that are part of our current series
• How to shop, plan, and prepare for them in a way that’s completely doable and non-stressful, even when life is busy.
• This is the simple filter I use on nights when I really can’t make another decision

Unlock the full post here For the system I use to take the stress out of weeknight dinners. I’m breaking down the simple structure that helps me plan, shop, and answer “What’s for dinner?” Without the hustle and bustle of the night.