I ate the same meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner nearly every day for almost two years. It makes it hard for me to give people advice on losing weight because I tell them what I did and the looks of horror and sympathy alone make me reconsider my own sanity. However, despite my seemingly miserable existence, eating the exact same thing every day had a purpose. I was focused on managing my weight and building strength, and I had found a formula that worked to support my fitness goals. My specific meals had exactly enough protein and calories to maintain healthy muscle growth, and the best part was I didn’t have to think about my meals. 

Turning Point

This is a concept I have been using for some time now. Prior to March of 2018 I was a mess. I was depressed, overweight, and working a dead-end job to support a miserable relationship of my own making. I had dropped out of college, couldn’t muster the energy to clean my apartment, and was ordering pizzas 3 times a week. After the relationship ended I threw out my back two weeks later. At 24 years old. While I was reaching down to take laundry out of the dryer. I learned what getting kicked while you’re down really meant.

I remember hobbling myself back to my apartment and shakily lowering down into a chair to look up at the ceiling and try not to move. “What the fuck was that?” I asked myself as my back spasmed at the slightest wrong movement. The depressive thoughts crept in then; “Look how sad this is. You just ended a 5 year long relationship and now your back goes out, at 24?” The thoughts that had plagued me for years were louder than ever. But for some reason, this time instead of succumbing to the comfortable embrace of depression I got angry. I was angry that I had wasted years of my life. I was angry that I had dropped out of college. I was angry that I hadn’t been promoted despite my efforts at work. Most of all I was angry that I had let myself go to such an extent that I threw out my back before being halfway to 50. I lifted myself out of the chair, hobbled to the bathroom, and looked at myself in the mirror. 

Change

I was sick of being this way, sick of LIVING this way. I looked myself in the eye and said “enough is enough, you need to get your shit together. You just threw your back out at 24 years old, that is ridiculous. We are rehabbing until we are healthy enough to run and then we start running.” I was fueled by anger towards myself for letting everything get so bad. I called in to work because I couldn’t stand without pain. In my free time I researched some stretches for the lower back and did the ones I could manage to the best of my ability. Every morning, afternoon, and night I sat in my bed and lifted my knees up one at a time as close to my chest as I could. Each day I could move a bit more and experienced less pain. 

Thankfully, after a week of doing this I was nearly pain free and could return to my life. Over the weekend I decided to fully commit to losing weight and getting in shape, and spent the weekend cleaning my house of any junk food and snacks. I researched how to properly get in shape and diet (reddit.com/r/fitness is a godsend) and started following a simple diet plan called If It Fits Your Macros, or iiFYM. I had a calorie number that I could not go over and specific protein goals for each day. I went to the grocery store and came up with a diet plan that would change very little over the next 2 years. 

On the Monday following my week of being humbled by life I got home from work and did a simple bodyweight exercise routine. With my partner gone I no longer had enough income to support myself long term and could not afford a gym membership, so I did what I could. On Tuesday after work I got into my workout gear, walked half a mile away from my apartment (I measured with my car) and ran back. It took me nearly 6 minutes to run back and by the end I felt like I had ran a marathon. I was in the worst shape of my life. But I could do half a mile.

I changed my routine as well. In my depressive slump I would let dishes pile up for weeks, creating hours of work for myself later on down the road. I had a habit of offloading my work to my future self so that I could remain comfortable in the moment, truly a black belt procrastinator. I decided to change this. Instead of letting chores and work pile up I adopted what I call the 20 Minute Rule. This rule states that any work that can be done in 20 minutes or less gets done as soon as it is needed.

The 20 Minute Rule

 Let me provide an example; when I finished a meal and wanted to be lazy I would make myself clean the dishes, which only took about 5-10 minutes since it was just the dishes from that meal. Once the dishes were all clean I would take another 5-10 minutes to dry them and put them away. Then I would take a minute or two to clean the counters. Each individual task only took 5-10 minutes so I just did it right away. Rather than offloading work to my future self I was front loading work to my current self. If something needed to get done it got done right away. 

The strangest thing happened when I employed the 20 Minute Rule to all my daily activities and chores. When I finished the last thing I had to do in a day I could relax. Previously, I would ignore any undone chores and “relax” but there was a mild background stress nagging me about all the work that I would eventually have to do. It was like a weight hanging over my head, I could pretend it wasn’t there but it generated a small amount of stress that kept me mildly uncomfortable at all times. Now imagine letting all of my chores pile up like this. Suddenly I could be watching Netflix and feel like the world was crashing down around me. 

Less Thinking, More Doing

Which brings me back to the idea of mental load. At the time I didn’t realize it, but I had created a disciplined and rigid structure to my day. Every activity fell into specific time slots and I began forming a very solid routine. I started waking up at the same time each day, going to bed at the same time each day. Each activity of the day was at the same time, everything became routine. This may sound boring or monotonous, but I noticed that my background stress had pretty much evaporated because nothing was left undone. By creating a rigid structure to my day I had taken out a lot of the need for willpower and conscious focus. The vast majority of my day became habitual, and thus subconscious. 

I ate the same thing every day because I did not have to think about it. I could eat on my diet plan and support my fitness goals and I never had to spend energy thinking about what I would be cooking for dinner that night. It made sticking to my diet nearly effortless. All the headache of counting calories was gone because I was hitting my goals every day. My routine became so regular that my only focus was on the tasks that were important. All the small things in the day stopped taking up my focus and time. This freed me to focus on my fitness and career, the two most important areas for me to fix.

The Results:

I lost 33 pounds (from 200 to 167) over the course of about 6 months from April to October. I went from struggling to run half a mile to running 2.5 miles every other day with increasing speed and ease. I had never ran more than a mile without having to stop and walk before. I ended up quitting my job and returning to school in August of 2018, where I eventually graduated with back-to-back 4.0s, raising my GPA by .75 in 2 semesters from a 2.5 to a 3.25, undoing a lot of the damage I had done before. In October of 2018 I began lifting and went from 167 pounds to 190 pounds in muscle growth, while still running 2.5 miles after lifting every other day. From October of 2018 to May of 2019 I doubled all of the working weights of my lifts. Nearly 2 years later I still employ these principles and find the same level of success.

What to Learn

Am I advocating that you, dear reader, eat the same thing every day and become a machine like I did? Not at all, I was at a very unique point in my life that allowed me to be focused on a singular objective and I think it would be unrealistic for most people to try what I did. My hope is that you take two important lessons from this article.

 First, I hope I have adequately demonstrated the power of frontloading small tasks using the 20 Minute Rule in reducing mental load through rigid schedule structure. By eliminating the “waste” in our daily routines; letting tasks go undone and piling up chores for our future selves to deal with, we free ourselves of the mental burden of anticipating those tasks having to be completed later. If it gets done immediately then it does not occupy any of your mental space, allowing you to relax and focus more fully on whatever it is you are working on.

 Second, this rigid structure provides stability that supports change. By eliminating mental load I was able to enact significant lifestyle changes that are still in place today, nearly 3 years later. “De-cluttering” your mind through reduction of mental load gives you more energy and focus to apply to tasks you want to complete. I was able to stay on a rigorous diet and exercise plan specifically BECAUSE I did not have to spend any energy on worrying over small but undone tasks. All of my willpower could be directed towards staying on track and accomplishing the things I needed to do.

Begin employing the 20 Minute Rule in your life, use a small amount of willpower to begin completing a task that has been undone. Clean and put away the dishes right after a meal. Instead of throwing your clothes onto the floor, take the SAME AMOUNT OF EFFORT to put them in the clothes basket. Over time you will find that these small tasks become habitual and you never have a significant amount of chores to do. When this happens and your chores get completed automatically you have more time and energy to devote to things that are important to you. 

The structure that emerges from this practice will allow you to make big changes like beginning to diet or exercise with ease as you can slot the practices into your existing schedule and use more mental energy to maintain the habits. So start asking yourself; “Will this take me less than 20 minutes to complete?” each time you encounter a task during your day. If the answer is yes, do it immediately. The results may shock you.