THE LIFESTYLE ENTREPRENEUR

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Minimum Effective Dose

Having a 3-week old baby in the house has taken my elaborate wellness routine and driven it down to the studs, so to speak. This reduction of all activities, by necessity of time, brings to mind an important concept for today - minimum effective dose.

The minimum effective dose (MED) is the smallest amount of effort needed to produce a desired result, eliminating unnecessary work while maintaining effectiveness.

This is a concept often used in fitness, but is relevant to many areas of life. Another commonly used concept that’s similar is the pareto principle or the 80/20 rule.

The Pareto Principle, or the 80/20 Rule, states that 80% of outcomes come from 20% of inputs—meaning a small portion of efforts, resources, or actions typically drive the majority of results. It’s commonly applied in business, productivity, and wellness to focus on the most impactful activities while minimizing wasted effort.

You get the concept right?

Bringing it back to our wellness journeys I’ll relate my recent learnings. Over the past few years I’ve prioritized my wellness and made great strides. By doing so I’ve tested many habits, tools, and tactics, and adopted a portion of them. Over time the list of things I do on a given day to stay well has added without me really noticing - because it happens over a long period of time, making some activity a habit means after a few months it doesn’t feel like doing something extra. Rather, its just part of my day.

A life change - new job, death in the family, moving, a new baby - is a good time to assess how important all your habits are because you’re getting out of your routine, and often at least feel like there’s less time in the day to take care of everything.

Enter the minimum effective dose - given ALL the things I like to do on a given day to feel well, what are the core activities I need to feel well enough? Or using the pareto principle - given limited time/energy - what are the 20% of activities that will get me 80% of the way there.

Here’s a list of my wellness activities - before and after baby:

As you can see I started from biggest activity reduction down to the least. Sleep makes sense - since I’ve spent the past 4 years improving my sleep after it tanked in 2019. And since that time I’ve added many activities that felt essential. Since baby came I’ve dropped a bunch of them - namely hot shower before bed and I haven’t been worrying about the morning sunlamp (this is mostly logistical, I believe in the importance of this), and my sleep quality has maintained pretty well given how interrupted it’s naturally going to be with a baby.

My workouts also reflected giving myself ample time each day to do not only my workouts, but my sauna/cold plunge habits - which has become a core part of my day. While I’d love to keep up all my workout activities, since my time is limited I dropped jiu jitsu temporarily, and have often done what I call “express self care days” - which is a fast 30-40 minute lifting session followed immediately by a 40 minute sauna/cold plunge rotation.

While my jiu jitsu game will regrettably suffer, my overall fitness isn’t likely to. In fact because I’ve chosen one priority - strength and muscle mass - I’m improving in that realm while maintaining elsewhere. Which is pretty exciting.

While this exercise was thrust upon me with baby Scarlett entering the world, I’d been planning on it for some time so nothing has felt overwhelming. The best way to make this kind of planning is in your quarterly planning (which I highly recommend) - make this part of it where you think about any parts of life that need pruning. Here’s some examples:

• Daily work tasks

• Closet & home organization

• Relationships and friend lists

• Personal finances

• Learning & self-development

Start by making a list of areas you feel could use a tune-up, then whenever you do your next planning session, pick one and tear it apart.

Talk to you next week,

Mike