Helpful Tips to Plan for a Successful Week

As someone who loves projects I find myself constantly working on a “to-do” list. Sometimes, at the start of the week it can feel overwhelming trying to figure out when I will have time to tackle each task! I also get really excited and super motivated for the things I want to do, like work on our home, and tend to push off the not so great things such as go to the DMV.

Fortunately, I have found several tools that have changed my life, and have helped me feel in control of my timeline. Here I will break down how I try to prepare our family for a successful week. I would like to note that I am not an expert at any of these, just sharing what I have been trying out and liking!

Tip #1: Pick One Day to Clean the House

For me, Monday is my day to wake up, pour a cup of coffee, and clean our home. I go through each room and wipe down cased goods, windex the glass, vacuum the rugs, wash the floors, empty trash bins, and throw any sheets or towels in the laundry, etc. It usually takes about 3 hours by the time I am done. Cleaning is something I enjoy doing because the work put in is so rewarding! Throughout the week when clutter can start to accumulate, it is a great way to reset the space and not let anything begin to pile up. After our home is clean, it gives us a fresh slate to head into the week. Nick and I really appreciate a clean place to relax at the end of a long day.

Tip #2: Fill Out a Schedule for Each Day

For some, this may be an old-school way to manage your calendar. Many people choose to plan their weeks out on their phone or computer, which is another efficient way to stay organized. I however, am a pen and paper kind of girl! At the start of each week I print out hourly calendars for each day. This has been incredibly helpful for figuring out when I will have time to do each task. It helps to start with “anchor times”. Anchor times are consistent times each day that you typically do something, such as wake up at 7 am and have lunch at 1 pm, etc. After you fill out anchor times, fill in your reoccurring weekly commitments such as church, grocery shop, or clean. Once those times are filled in, fill in your top priority tasks for the week, such as go to the DMV or write thank you letters. After those are entered, you will have a visual understanding of what time is leftover for your creative or social times. Here is an example of a filled out schedule and a blank one, incase you are interested in trying this out yourself! I don’t typically color code my calendars, but for this example I color coded them by Anchor Times, Reoccurring, Priority, and Creative.

Tip #3: Meal Plan for the Week

“What would you like for dinner?” “I don’t know, what would you like” “…I don’t know…” Is this conversation familiar to you? I know in our home we’ve had this conversation often! I recently decided to give meal planning a try and let me tell you it has been a game changer for us! I don’t mean meal planning like cooking a gallon of rice on Sunday with chicken and vegetables and dividing it into containers for the week. I mean writing out what you will prepare for each meal everyday. Not only has this saved time, it has saved us so much money! Writing out each meal (and plugging in times we will be eating out) has given me a visual of what ingredients I am buying, because of this I am able to group ingredients and use them several times each week. This makes creating a grocery list a breeze, and helps to know what quantity of each item to buy, so nothing is wasted. For example: last week for dinner I made chicken, broccoli and rice. I purposely made extra, so the next day I was able to turn those ingredients into fried rice for a couple more dinners and a lunch. Below is this weeks meal plan, and a blank copy incase you would like to fill one in for yourself!

Tip #4: Restock Envelopes

Our goal this summer was to be better stewards of our income. As good as we tried to be with spending, we found ourselves often going over budget. We decided to try the envelope system and have found that it works amazingly well for us! Most of our bills come directly from our accounts, so we are well prepared for those and didn’t incorporate those costs into our envelopes. The things that were sneaking up on us were the out of pocket costs like groceries, or even trips to Target. We broke our spending down into categories and made an envelope for each one. Some examples were groceries, eating out, entertainment, etc. We then decided on an amount we would be comfortable spending each week on that category, based on our income. At the start of each week I restock our envelopes with the cash budgeted for that week. Once the cash in that envelope is spent, we are done spending in that category until the next time we restock it (once a week in our case). This has not only helped us stay on budget, but has helped us be more thoughtful on where we were prioritizing our resources.

Tip #5: Spend a Couple Minutes Now to Save Hours Later

The final tip is a day to day habit that efficient people tend to follow. As the title explains, spend a couple minutes now to save hours later. Loading the dishwasher at the end of each meal or getting rid of the mail as soon as you open it will take a couple extra minutes in the present, but will save you hours of doing dishes or sorting through a pile of paper on your counter later.

I hope you enjoyed these tips! Let me know if you tried any and if they worked for you!