As a work at home mom I have a lot of “plans”… whether it’s a plan to clean the house, cook the meals, manage my social media marketing, or build my business.. there’s a lot of plans around here!
One thing I’ve noticed is unless I’ve created some way to STICK to the plan, it’s pretty easy to fall off the rails. For instance, every week I make a meal plan. I spend quite a bit of time Sunday making our meal plan, and doing the grocery shopping. However… the last couple weeks I’ve skipped a step in the plan. I have not designated specific days for us to eat the wonderful meals I’ve planned. I also have not posted this plan on the refrigerator door. In fact, the list and menu have been stuck at the bottom of my purse from when I went grocery shopping. 🙁
Needless to say… we haven’t much stuck to our meal plan the last couple weeks. So what?! Yeah, that’s the question I’d be asking too… but when I don’t follow a plan there tends to be a domino effect… like:
We ate out 3 or 4 times this week, which meant spending money that was already budgeted and spent in groceries.
There weren’t leftovers from dinner to send to school in Hanna’s lunch ~ which meant PB and J at least one day last week.
Which also meant there wasn’t a healthy nutritious lunch for me to eat either.
We didn’t get to sit down to the table as a family and eat.
We ended up wasting food because it spoiled before we used it…
There are similar ramifications from not sticking with the plan in business as well. If you have a plan, and don’t have a system in place to make sure you actually FOLLOW the plan, that’s what I’d be doing today… creating a system.
I’ve found if I write in each day’s menu on the white board on the fridge I do a pretty good job of sticking with the meal plan, and actually cooking meals. We’re a lot healthier, we save money, and we don’t waste much food. All good things.
So here’s this week’s meal plan… with specific days.
Sunday:
Spaghetti
Salad
Homemade Herb Bread
Monday:
Teriyaki Chicken
Rice and green beans
Tuesday:
Goulache
Wednesday:
Curried Coconut Chicken
Rice Green Beans
Thursday:
Tacos
and the fixin’s
Friday:
Homecoming Chili Feed
Saturday:
Traveling ~ eat out
Sunday:
PB and J Chicken Stew
Rice and Green Beans
We’re linked up with meal plan Monday over at orgjunkie.com… if you need some menu ideas definitely stop over and look around!
Image: renjith krishnan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Awesome..sticking to a plan is the best idea. It can be a menu planning, time mangagement, etc. This is a great idea.
Donna
I remember once upon a time that I used to cook all day Sunday and then freeze and parcel things out and we always had good meals. One question I ask my business clients is why they chose to do something other than they planned. And there answers sometimes show that life happens even with the best of plans. Live today and enjoy what happens. It is perfect and have no regrets if for some reason you fail to stick to the plan. One lesson – your children are only young once
Hi Jackie!
Planning is so important but doesn’t always happen. I think it’s important for people to remember that it’s okay to revise your plan or schedule if it’s not working for you!
You’ve developed for yourself a great way here to help you stick to your plan. You are so right in the importance of planning out properly everything you want to do. Your meal plan sounds very tasty and im on my way to join you for tacos on thursday.