How To Organize Your Upcoming Week

Do you find yourself coming home from work only to stare at the refrigerator and wonder what you are going to feed yourself, spouse, and kids for dinner?  You shrug your shoulders, give up, and then pick up the phone to dial the familiar pizza place for delivery.  You feel terrible because doing this most nights of the week is chaotic, expensive, and not always healthy eating for your family.  But it happens because you are busy with work and all that goes into getting your kids to and from school, completing homework, and getting them to their extracurricular activities.

I call these “rush days.”  It’s self explanatory.  It’s also very frustrating because we want to do better but we are not sure how or feel overwhelmed in how to be better.

I know this feeling because I have had many rush days in my 16 years being a wife and working mother.  Through the years I have tried to implement several ideas on conquering this battle but nothing ever seemed to work long term.  As an organized person I grew particularly frustrated.  I tapped into my organizing friends to get some ideas.  What I discovered was a great method for pre-planning my entire week several days ahead of time.  It has worked for me for many months and I hope it works for you too. 

In order for pre-planning to work you must have a tool that you can use that is easy enough to implement and won’t take too much of your free time.  In the beginning I just used a simple sheet of paper and drew a grid on the paper with 7 big rows (one for each day of the week) and 4 columns.  One column is for the dinner meal for that day.  Another column is for any food I need for that meal that I need to buy at the grocery story.  A third column is for activities for the day that I must be aware of so I can plan meals around it.  The last column is for any personal goals that I have for that day.   

I sit down on Friday evening or Saturday morning with my grid in hand and start to fill in my sheet of paper for the upcoming week.  I first fill in column 3 which is activities.  This is important because it could make the difference in what you make for dinner that evening.  After you fill out the activities column, fill in your goals for the day.  Perhaps you have something special you need to do or remember. 

After you fill in your activities columns, you are ready to start planning your meals.  I usually take out some of my favorite cookbooks or go online to foodnetwork.com where I have my own recipe box.  I start filling out column 1 with my meal plans for that day.  On days where you have a lot of activities you might want to make that particular meal a crock pot meal or something that can be made ahead of time.  On days where there are no activities you might want to plan a meal that is a bit more involved.  Either way it is your preference.  Select meals that work with your schedule and family and write it all down on your grid.

After you complete column 1, you will now fill in column 2 with the food you will need to prepare the meals from column 1.  In many instances, you might already have the food in your pantry.  The second column will eventually become a shopping list for you.

When the entire grid is filled in you will have completed your plan for the week.  Place the plan up on your refrigerator so that you can refer to it ahead of time and be able to prepare for everything that comes up in advance.

Good luck with your planning. For more organizing tips please visit my blog at http://tmorganizing.blogspot.com.