THE NO-DECISION MENU
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
Option A: Sausage Egg Bake - Get creative by switching up the meat option, or go the veggie route with some mushrooms instead. Make this Sunday, and you’re set for the week.
Option B: Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins - This is a fun grab n go option you can make ahead.
Lunch
Option A: Chicken Pasta Salad - This is an easy recipe that can last a few days, and stores well in the fridge. Make it one weeknight you have an extra 30 minutes. Then you have lunch for a few meals.
Option B: Poblano & Black Bean Loaded Baked Potato - Super fun meal idea! You can make the potatoes ahead, and have all the toppings prepped for a quick lunch.
Dinner
Option A: Chicken Thighs with White beans - Love a hearty one-skillet dinner on a cold night. Make extras so you have lunch the next day.
Option B: Spicy Beef Stir Fry - Almost every Thursday night we do a stir fry in my house. It’s an easy dinner option that takes 30 minutes, and it’s simple to make enough for leftovers.
When food is decided ahead of time, energy shows up where it matters.
NEW VIDEO
I Ordered $200,000 in Groceries and Learned This
You never actually learned how to grocery shop the right way. Nobody taught you. You just copied your parents, or figured it out when you moved.
It’s time to stop “winging it”. Fix your list.
Watch on YouTube.
THE SYSTEM
Choosing a recipe each meal can be exhausting every week.
Endless scrolling social media for recipes you bookmarked
Using Google to sift through thousands of ideas
Flipping through your hundred pages of cookbooks
At a certain point it seems easier to order delivery food or just eat an ice cube.
Any week I have to decide what to cook right before dinner, my mental energy tanks. Decision fatigue kicks in immediately.
That’s why I always strive to plan my meals each week ahead of time.
It might seem like a daunting task at first. I promise it’s not.
Let’s break it down.
The core problem: Decision Fatigue
Your mental exhaustion stems from choosing, not cooking meals.
Think about last week for a second.
A random Tuesday night after work
You made 100 decisions that day already
You’re tired and just want to relax
Then the final boss appears.
“What’s for dinner?”
Nothing worse than not knowing the answer to this question ahead of time.
The goal is simple.
Turn dinner into a system, instead of a daily decision.
Weeknights should be time to decompress after a long day.
Not complete dinner chaos.
One of the easiest ways I coast through each week with a pre-planned weeknight dinner selection, is to simply plan ahead.
All it takes is 10 minutes on Sunday. (Deep Dive)
During that quick planning session, you will create three things:
Your schedule for the week ahead
A few meal categories to choose from
Your weeknight dinners already decided
Once those decisions are made, your brain can relax.
You will instantly free up mental energy for the rest of the week.
You’ll have a few benefits you wouldn’t expect as well.
Such as:
Sleeping through the night more
Waking up with more focus and clarity
Cruising through complex decisions the next day
I always like to tell myself that “a good morning routine starts at night”.
Anytime I have a pre-planned weeknight dinner option, my next day is 10x more productive.
But what do you actually cook?
At some point you do need to choose recipes.
The trick is repetition.
No need to be Gordon Ramsey by being super creative every night.
Life gets easier when meals are simple and repeatable.
This is where your “No-Decision Menu” comes into play. (Deep Dive)
Your three default recipes should be meals you can cook half asleep. No creativity required. Perfect for busy weeks.
If you do not have these written down yet, you can use the curated No-Decision Menu included at the top of this newsletter.
Each week I share two recipes for:
Breakfast
Lunch
Dinner
The goal is simple.
Make your life easier and reduce the number of decisions you need to make.
Less dinner stress.
More energy for everything else.
You’ll be more focused next week.
By simply reducing the amount of decisions around meals.
If this system saves you time next week, let me know.
WHENEVER YOU’RE READY
Here’s how I can help:
1) YouTube Channel — Binge my best videos on reducing decision fatigue by building a repeatable meal plan.
2) Previous Newsletters — Read all of my previous meal planning system breakdowns.
3) Apply to the Meal Planning OS Founding Program — I’m opening up a small founding group to build the first version.
Your Saturday system reset, same time next week.
— Steven
