Several years ago, one of my staff members asked me a very odd question.

She said, “Do you eat the same meal for breakfast and lunch every day?”

As I thought about the question, I became a little self-conscious because I knew the answer immediately. I thought to myself, Gosh, I am really boring and apparently quirky, too.

“Yeah, I do actually,” I said, feeling somewhat embarrassed by my unexciting meal choices.

I was surprised by her response. She mentioned that many great leaders swear by having the same meal for breakfast and lunch. When breakfast and lunch are already decided, you remove two decisions from your day before the hard decisions even begin.

I guess I had never really thought about it that way before. But she was so right.

On Sundays after church, my wife and I have a routine of making our menu for the week and then going grocery shopping. It’s kind of silly, but it’s something fun we do together. We’re the dorks who like to place bets on how much the final bill will be, something we’ve done since we were first married.

As I think back to making the meal plan and shopping for the ingredients, how nice is it to only have to concern yourself with seven menu items instead of 21?

That’s two-thirds, or 66%, of the decision tree that doesn’t even have to be climbed.

And grocery shopping is a breeze.

While I used to think we were just creatures of habit, what we were really doing was building a system. We go to the same exact grocery store. Recently, we switched from Lidl to Food Lion. I LOVED Lidl, but since I’ve started a new business, I have been really money conscious, and I have found Food Lion to be cheaper.

Because we go to the same store, and because most of the items on the list are the same things I bought last week, and the week before, and the week before that, shopping is easy.

Coming back home to unload the groceries? Easy. I know where most of the things go without even looking.

Apparently, meal planning this way may not just make life simpler. It may also support healthier habits.

A 2026 study published in Health Psychology looked at 112 participants in a behavioral weight-loss program and found that more routinized eating patterns — repeating meals and keeping calorie intake steadier — predicted greater 12-week weight loss. In summary, healthy eating requires constant decision-making, and making choices more automatic may reduce that burden.

And you know what? My co-worker was right. There are plenty of examples of leaders who use this same kind of “operating system.”

Alexa von Tobel, founder of LearnVest, told Fast Company that she ate the same thing every day at work (an apple, almonds, yogurt, and a salad) because her goal was to create personal operating systems that helped her think as little as possible about small daily decisions and save mental energy for real decisions.

Author and productivity entrepreneur Tim Ferriss has recommended eating the same lunch almost every day. His regular lunch has included organic beef, mixed vegetables, pinto beans, and guacamole.

And while it’s not necessarily a food example, it does resonate with me from a leadership standpoint. Barack Obama was known for keeping things simple by wearing only gray or blue suits. His goal was to remove low-value choices from a high-pressure day.

Now, none of us has the stress of being President of the United States, but we do have pressures. And if you can cut out the “middleman” when it comes to decision-making, why wouldn’t you?

I used to joke that maybe what I was doing was just one of my weird quirks. Now I am choosing to believe it is one more sign that I appreciate systems.

Eating the same breakfast and lunch every day can reduce decision fatigue, create healthier defaults, save time, and protect mental energy for more important decisions.

Consistency is not always boring.

Sometimes consistency is what creates capacity.