Remove food decisions from your week.
These are default recipes you can plug into your schedule.
Use one or two per meal category and repeat as needed.

I picked these so you don’t have to think about it.

Breakfast

Lunch

Dinner

When food is decided ahead of time, energy shows up where it matters.

Last weekend, I spent all Sunday afternoon snowshoeing with my family.

On the surface, that sounds normal. Nothing special.

But here’s the wild part.

I was able to do this WITHOUT the “Sunday Scaries”.

Years ago, Sundays looked very different.

I’d spend the entire day:

By Sunday night, I was exhausted, and Monday hadn’t even started yet.

Last Sunday was different.

I spent 10-minutes doing my meal planning routine.

That meant I had my week of meals planned, before spending time in the outdoors with my family.

That 10 minutes gave me an immediate ROI in mental energy that lasted all week.

Let me explain why.

We’ve all heard this quote:

But we don’t take action on planning the seemingly small things in life.

Even if they can throw off our entire week.

You might get super busy on the weekend taking your kids to whatever sports they play, get stuck working overtime, or maybe you take a last-minute trip.

The first thing that gets pushed aside is planning what you’re eating.

You tell yourself you’ll:

And sure, you can do any of these.

But you shouldn’t rely on them.

Think about any big decision you have made in life.

EVERY big decision you sit down and think.

Same concept applies to planning your meals for the week.

When you rush food decisions, the downstream effects look like:

This isn’t a discipline problem.

It’s decision fatigue combined with zero strategy.

And that’s fixable.

The weeks I stick to my meal plan are the months I unlock new levels in life.

I feel like I could run through walls and accomplish any goal I set.

Last weekend, I felt complete zen because I had such a large chunk of my week planned already.

I knew I’d be able to swing by the grocery store on the way home from family time to get the ingredients I needed for the week.

All because I sat down and made a plan (see below).

Instead of running around like a chicken with no head all week, I knew I had this notepad version of the Meal Planning OS to keep me on track.

Without this I would:

Collectively it saves me 5-10 hours of mental energy each week, by simply spending 10 minutes Sunday morning creating my plan for the week.

Now, keep in mind. I’ve been doing this for years at a high-level.

What takes me 10-minutes, might take you longer. But the core concept remains true.

I bet you’d spend 30 minutes, an hour, or even 90 minutes…if it meant saving you 5-10 hours the following week.

I’m a big fan of K.I.S.S. (keep it simple, stupid).

That’s why I’ve been including 2 default recipes each week.

You shouldn’t have to spend hours scrolling the internet to find the “perfect” recipe for each week’s meal.

Here’s a simple framework you can use this week.

Step 1) Plan your week

Step 2) Choose defaults

Step 3) Build your grocery list

Step 4) Schedule shopping & cooking

That’s it.

But remember, based on your skill level.

Start SMALL. Like smaller than you think.

It’s like working out.

If you work out too hard the first few days, you’ll quit because you injure yourself.

Right now focus on building your meal planning muscles.

Let me know if you have any questions. Just reply to this email, I read every message.

Your Saturday system reset, same time next week.

Steven | Meal Planning OS

P.S. I’d love your feedback. Use the poll below or reply to this email.