The short version
When the calendar gets fuller, most people assume the problem is time. It usually isn’t. Less time means every remaining minute has more decisions about what gets done, what gets skipped, and what gets moved, and that decision load is what actually wears a person out. The fix isn’t finding more hours. It’s cutting the number of decisions competing for the hours you have.
Why does having less time make everything feel so much harder?
Most advice for a packed season goes straight to the calendar: block your time, say no to more things, protect your evenings. All useful, and none of it touches what might actually be running you down.
Because less time doesn’t just shrink your schedule; it multiplies your decisions. A full week means the schedule pretty much decides itself. A tight week means everything becomes a judgment call: what to cut, what to move, what to say yes to, what to let drop. Each of those calls pulls on working memory and prioritizing, the same executive functions ADHD brains already spend more effort on than most.
By the time an actual decision needs making, like whether to go to one more holiday gathering, there’s not much decision-making capacity left. That’s not a time problem showing up. It’s a decision-volume problem that gets misread as a time problem.
The self-talk that tends to form around this is “I’m just so bad with time.” What’s actually true is closer to “I’m carrying too many open decisions to think clearly about any one of them.” That’s a small change in language, but it points at the part that’s actually fixable.
What does this actually look like day to day?
A client of mine described her November mornings as a lineup before she’d even had coffee: an evite to answer, a school email that needed a reply, a text about swapping carpool days, a decision about whether dinner needed to be a real meal or cereal was fine that night. None of those decisions took long on their own. Stacked together before 8 a.m., they left her more drained than the actual tasks of her day did. By the time she sat down to do her job, she’d already spent a real chunk of her decision-making capacity on things that felt too small to even count.
That’s worth noticing. It’s rarely one big decision that wears a person down during a busy season. It’s a dozen small ones arriving before the day has even properly started.
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Why does “I just need more time” rarely fix it?
Because more time usually just means more decisions to make about how to use it. An open afternoon sounds like relief, but for a brain already running on fumes, an unstructured block can create its own kind of overwhelm: too many options for how to fill it, no forcing function to choose. More time helps only when the number of decisions stays the same or drops. Otherwise, the extra hours get spent deciding, not doing.
What does “fewer decisions” actually look like heading into a busy season?
A few concrete ways to cut decision volume rather than add more hours:
- Set defaults for the choices that come up over and over this time of year, like a standard answer for invitations you’re not sure about (“checking the calendar, I’ll let you know by Friday”) so you’re not re-deciding it every single time it comes up.
- Pick your non-negotiables before the season gets more demanding: the two or three things you actually want to show up for, so everything else has an automatic answer: not this year.
- Batch similar decisions together instead of spreading them out. Deciding on all your gift-giving in one sitting takes less out of you than deciding on it five separate times across two weeks.
The goal isn’t doing less. It’s making fewer separate decisions about what you’re doing.
Is this the same thing as time management?
No, and that’s worth naming clearly. Time management assumes the problem is fitting tasks into hours. This is about reducing how many times your brain has to stop and choose, which is a different resource than time. You can have a wide-open afternoon and still burn out from decision load if that afternoon is full of unresolved choices. Protecting your decision-making capacity, not just your calendar, is what actually needs managing here.
What happens if you don't cut the decision volume?
Unresolved decisions don’t sit still in the background. An invitation you haven’t answered, a choice you’re putting off, a plan you haven’t confirmed, these keep taking up space in working memory whether you’re actively thinking about them or not. That’s why a day that looks light on paper can still feel heavy by the end of it. The open decisions are doing quiet work the whole time, whether or not you’re doing anything about them yet.
Left alone, that pileup tends to grow rather than resolve itself. Every unanswered invite makes the next one feel like one more thing to track, and by mid-December a person can be carrying a dozen small open loops without being able to name a single one of them.
The bottom line
“I don’t have enough time” is often the wrong focus. The real strain is usually decision volume: too many judgment calls stacked into too little space to make them well. Cutting the number of decisions, through defaults, clear non-negotiables, and batching, does more for a packed season than finding another hour ever will.
Action steps:
- Pick one recurring decision you’re currently making from scratch every time (an invitation type, a meal choice, a scheduling question) and set a default answer for it this week.
- Before the season gets busier, write down your two or three non-negotiables for November and December, so everything outside that list has an automatic answer instead of a fresh decision.
FAQ
Why do I feel more exhausted during busy seasons even when I’m not doing more physical work?
Because busy seasons multiply decisions, not just tasks. Deciding what to prioritize, skip, or move takes real mental effort, and that effort adds up separately from the work itself.
If I set a default answer for invitations, doesn’t that feel rigid?
A default isn’t a permanent rule; it’s a starting answer you can override on purpose when something matters enough. The point is not re-deciding the same low-stakes question from scratch every time it comes up.
Can this help with everyday decision fatigue, not just holidays?
Yes. The holiday season just makes the pattern easier to see because the decision volume spikes so visibly. The same approach, defaults, clear priorities, batching, applies any time the calendar gets tight.
Does this apply to work decisions too, or mostly personal ones?
Both. Work decisions pile up the same way personal ones do: small approvals, quick calls, minor choices between options. The season just tends to add a second full set of decisions on top of the ones already coming from work.
What if I don’t know which decisions to set a default for first?
Start with whichever one you’re already making the most often without really thinking about it. Those repeat decisions are usually the easiest to turn into a default, and they free up the most capacity for the ones that actually need your attention.
Executive Functioning and ADHD Coaching
I'm an ADHD and executive function coach and a certified organizational specialist, trained in Solution-Focused Brief Therapy and the Seeing My Time executive functioning curriculum. For five years I worked as a speech-language pathologist in adult medical rehabilitation, providing cognitive communication therapy. That background is what I bring to coaching.
Coaching happens online, which most of my clients prefer for the convenience and the privacy. Wherever you are, we can work together.
All services provided by Suzy Carbrey LLC are coaching, not clinical evaluation or treatment. I am a licensed speech-language pathologist, and that background shapes how I coach, but coaching is not speech therapy. If you're looking for a formal evaluation or treatment, let me know and I can refer you to a qualified clinician.