How to make household decisions
If you and the person/people you live with turn every single small decision —
Where should we go tonight?
What should we cook this weekend?
Should we buy the reusable storage bags or the disposable ones?
Should we ask the upstairs neighbors to turn down their TV again or sit here and complain about it to each other until bedtime?
— into a three-hour debate, you’re not alone!
I think we underestimate how much of our lives we spend making these small decisions…many of them over and over again to the point of extreme tedium! And while some decisions are easier to make as a team, many of them actually get harder the more people you add. If the words “what should we do for dinner?” make you break out into a cold sweat, read on for some suggestions:
1) Take turns
The easiest and most powerful tool to implement. One week you choose what we do on Saturday, the next week I choose. One month you pick the streaming service to sign up for, the next month your roommate gets their turn. It’s fair, it’s efficient, and it cuts waaaaay down on some very boring conversations.
I have also heard a funny idea, which is: when someone asks what you want to do for dinner or virtually anything else, and you’re totally out of ideas, you say “Yes, I have an idea; can you guess what it is?” And then when the person says, “Is it tacos/Love Island/drinking two beers and going to bed at 8pm?”, you just reply “Yes! You guessed it!” And that’s what you do 🤣.
2) One person picks 3 options; the other person chooses 1 of those
If you’re deciding where to go for dinner, one of you chooses three restaurants and the other person picks one of those. That’s it. It’s a nice way to give both people some choice…but not too much.
This suggestion is adapted from what my mother used to do with my sisters and I if we were sharing, say, a piece of cake. One person would cut it and the other person could choose the piece they wanted. Of course, if you were cutting it, you’d try to make it as close to exactly half as possible ;)
3) Who wants it more?
I’ve been hearing a lot about this system and I think it’s worth trying if you’re trying to decide, say, where to go on vacation, or what to have for dinner (I know a lot of my examples are based on dinner, but that’s a daily decision that sucks up a lot of people’s decision-making energy! Also, what I eat for dinner is very important to me.)
Each person states their preference and ALSO how much they really want it, on a scale of 1 to 10. If you want to go to Cape Cod for vacation but you’re not desperate to do it, you might give Cape Cod a 6 or 7 on your personal “got to have it!” scale. Your BFF, on the other hand, has been dreaming all year of going to the Grand Canyon. For him, it’s a 9 out of 10. In this case, the person who wants something MORE gets to choose.*
*For the sake of fairness, I’d suggest that this automatically trigger the “they now have to plan and book the entire vacation” clause, which is something I just made up. Would I take a trip somewhere I didn’t care that much about it if I didn’t have to search for flights, try to find cheap rental cars, and book a week’s worth of accommodation? Hell, yes!
4) One person owns the decisions in this arena
Many couples do this with finances (I would NOT recommend this), but other areas one person can take complete ownership of can be car stuff (insurance, inspection/MOT, oil changes, car payments), the “outside of the house” like painting, garden, etc; decorating the house; pet care; all contact with the landlord, etc.
That means they don’t bring all small decisions to the other person (what color do we paint the bathroom, when should we take the bikes for tune-ups) but instead they make all those choices for the team. I love this one, because A) being released from decision-making responsibility occasionally can be such bliss, and B) you always have someone to blame if you hate your new matte black bathroom.
Related: I talked to a client recently who told me about getting a dog with her partner. She was new to dogs and wasn’t totally sure about it; he was all in. So she said, “OK—but the dog is 51% yours.” That meant he made the final decisions and took ultimate responsibility for it. Smart!