How The 80/20 Rule Transformed My Meal Planning Forever
This rule saved me from countless hours of decision fatigue.
There was a time I had almost given up on planning my meals.
As though a hectic schedule wasn’t bad enough, I also had to contend with maintaining consistency, juggling a bazillion grocery shopping ideas, accounting for food waste, and sheer recipe boredom.
I couldn’t get the hang of it. There were just too many decisions to make.
There had to be a simpler way to go about this, I told myself.
While listening to a podcast in the middle of a lousy dinner, I chanced upon a rule that hit the jackpot.
The Pareto Principle, also called the 80/20 rule, says that roughly 80% of effects come from 20% of the causes.
This is a rule that has been applied broadly, from business to personal productivity, all emphasizing focusing efforts on the most impactful tasks. In terms of meal planning, I soon found that the Pareto was seemingly custom-made for those with busy lifestyles, with the goal of bringing about both efficiency in preparation as well as sustainable health outcomes. It made me realize that by identifying the key 20% of efforts that yielded 80% of my desired meal planning results, I could streamline my approach significantly!
Feel free to use these practical tips based on this rule, the next time you’re in meal plan mode!
🍳 Buy in bulk. By making bulk purchases, I reduced the number of trips I made to the store. This saved a boatload of time, and had the added benefit of minimizing my impulse buys!
This also helped with strategizing: By having a well-stocked pantry with bulk purchases, I could easily plan meals around a few staple items. For example, when I purchased rice and beans in bulk, I could plan multiple meals using a number of recipes throughout the week.
🍳 Choose versatile ingredients. By going for ingredients that I could use in multiple dishes, I was able to buy fewer items, all the while still making sure I could rustle up a variety of meals. Convenient, right? From delicious soups to flavorful pasta sauces, these ingredients became the foundation of many unique dishes, making my meal prep much more enjoyable.
Many of these items, like canned tomatoes, also came with a longer shelf life, which was a definite plus in stocking them up without working about spoilage.
🍳 Cook in batches. Is this about saving time? You bet! Preparing batches of multiple servings of different kinds of food during the weekend was nothing short of a eureka moment for me. Cooking large batches of rajma (kidney bean curry) and jeera rice during the weekend and pairing it up with yogurt or a salad became a comforting ritual for the rest of the week.
Reheating a nutritious dish after a busy day offered me a lot of relief. I had so much more time during the weekdays to focus on my work or leisure, without stressing about deciding on a meal. Having ready-made meals also turned out to be a healthier choice, getting rid of my temptation to go for convenience foods.
🍳 Use leftovers in the next day’s meals. “Don’t waste food” is one of the first life lessons we learn growing up. But really, there’s more than this reason to finish your leftovers.
I quickly found that leftovers from yesterday’s main dish — roasted chicken, for example — can be used for today’s sandwiches, salads, or stir-fries. There’s a lot of room for creativity here, and truth to be told, I can taste the satisfaction!
🍳 Use one-pot recipes to reduce cleanup. I find that one-pot recipes generally require fewer ingredients and utensils to prepare than typical multi-dish meals, which is definitely less effort. In addition to reducing cleanup, one-pot meals helped me learn to love the art of cooking. Layering the ingredients and managing cooking times effectively became skills that helped me gain more confidence about the process overall.
I can’t forget to mention this: so many rich flavors and nutrients meld together during the cooking process, all of which add up very nicely!
🍳 Use meal planning apps. Data, data, data. These apps offer nutritional information, meal history tracking, and feedback mechanisms to support meal planning, and I absolutely prefer to outsource this responsibility to a system. Tracking my intake of calories, macros, and vitamins with precision was a gift that I never knew I needed until I started using these apps!
Getting to update preferences and goals based on my present circumstances and having something external to keep me accountable is a godsend.
I adopted the 80/20 rule with the goal of efficient meal planning; that being said, I soon realized that identifying and focusing on the 20% freed me from more than just decision fatigue and overthinking.
It helped me discover appreciation — true appreciation of the enjoyment that comes with creating meals as well as how they nourished me from within. It’s a testament to how small, strategic changes can lead to huge benefits in both physical health and overall quality of life.
Becoming a healthier version of yourself doesn’t have to be a chore — not if you learn to be smart about it.
