“Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.” – William Penn
Over the years, I have been a working mom in a corporate job with travel, a homeschool mom, and a stay-at-home mom. And now I am back to a working mom in a corporate position. Each place is different, with its own set of challenges, and all are busy. Weekly planning keeps me sane!
Being a Mama Bear is a calling, an honor, a privilege, and a lot of work!
While each season can be busy, hectic and at times chaotic, they are also meant to be enjoyed. When the joy in our season is replaced by a constant sense that there are not enough hours in the day, we have crossed the line from busy to fast-tracked burn out. I know because I have crossed that line. The line into doing, and doing more, and doing even more.
“Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.” – Warren Buffet.
Our mental, emotional, and physical health come from having focused effort. That means not just doing, but doing what matters. Doing the right things. To accomplish that we all need quiet time to dream, to plan, to reflect, and then to re-plan. To know our focus. Our focus, our priority, is necessary not only for today but for our future.
As much as I would find comfort in a tightly run ship with plans, schedules, and flawless execution, that is not my reality. Kids get sick, events come up abruptly, and someone suddenly remembered a school project.
Despite the chaos that comes with parenting a small army, there are things we can do that help us maintain our sanity, while also being flexible for those things that just come up.
An hour of planning can save you 10 hours of doing.
If there was only one piece of advice I could share to prevent burn out, I would recommend weekly planning. In “5 Simple Steps to Be The Mama That Does It All,” I shared the importance of knowing your priorities and planning ahead. To be most effective with managing our time and effort, we must know what is important to us and our family. Only you, my dear Mama Bear, get to decide that. You are the one that has a vision of what you want for your family!
Strategic planning is useless if there isn’t a strategic vision.
In this post, I outline 8 steps to weekly planning. These steps keep the family ship afloat even in stormy seasons – it is the key to the focused effort.
- Schedule planning time – This seems so obvious, but also something we quickly push off. Don’t push it off!
- Start off with a prayer to set the right intention for the week, and seek wisdom for the times where the list is greater than the time.
- Get in the routine of a set time for your weekly planning. The day/time may vary with your season in life, but a regular time is essential. This is a date with yourself that you must keep.
- There have been times when I did this Friday nights to go into the weekend with a plan. Other times I have done it Sunday night so that I was ready to get up on Monday with a plan. Now I do it on Saturday morning so that I have the weekend to do what would be a challenge to do during the work week. Find a time that works for you and stick to it.
- Collection process:
- Brain dump – Grab a piece of paper, planner or notebook and write everything down. This can be events, to-do’s, reminders, thoughts, dreams, etc. Put it all down on paper.
- Papers – Gather all the mail, school forms, random post-it notes, etc. that you’ve collected over the week that needs to be reviewed. Toss junk mail. Stack papers that need to be “worked.” This includes bills to pay, events to schedule, forms that need to be filled out and sent back. Create a second pile of papers that don’t require action but can’t be discarded. This is your “to file” collection.
- eMail – Just as with your documents, scan through your emails and identify any that will have an action item to go with it. This includes events on your calendar, something you need to do, and/or a necessary response within a time limit. Jot it down on the list you created above
- Organize your schedule –
- Have a single family calendar. This is a key to know where to be, what is coming up, and coordinating anything required for these events. Your schedule will, in turn, determine how much time you have to do tasks.Use an electronic calendar that you share with family members, or hang a paper calendar where everyone can see it.
- Update your calendar – Review what is on there and remove anything you decided not to attend or has been canceled. Add any new or missing events to your calendar.
- Identify to-do’s – Write down to-do’s related to the activities such as buying food for a potluck or a gift for a party. Be sure to include the date of the event.
- Plan ahead – Look ahead at the next month and add to-do’s that should or could be done now to alleviate stress at a later day. Forward planning avoids last minute emergencies.
- Maintain, schedule, and track routines/habits – these are things that must be done daily or weekly. Think “maintenance” to-do’s that are not one-off tasks or event/project related. Keeping up with these activities is essential to keeping the family ship afloat and avoiding unnecessary emergencies or wasted time.
- Do NOT mix routines and habits in with your to-do’s. It will be easy to focus on the routine tasks and fail to focus on to-do’s that are priorities.
- Routines – These are things that are done regularly to maintain a smooth household such as sweeping floors, doing laundry, etc. Keep a list of them, the frequency of when then need to be done and check off them off. Think of things you can do the night before that will make the next morning run smoothly.
- I make it a routine to clean/sweep the kitchen, set the breakfast table, lay out lunchboxes with snacks, and prepare school folders that need to go back. It eliminates running around looking for stuff in the morning.
- Habits – These are things that you do that help you be the best you. For example, logging if you drank all your water, exercise, prayer/journaling, or reading. Keep a list of them, the frequency of when you want to do them, and remember to check them off.
- Schedule them! – As needed, block time off on your schedule to accomplish your routines and habits. If you do laundry once a week, block that time off. If you go to the gym for exercise, block that time off. Lets face it, if you don’t block off the time these things are easy to push off.
- Meal plan – Now that you’ve established what you have going on, you know that your family will ask, “What is for dinner?”
- Go-to family favorites list – Have a go-to list of family favorites that you can plug in. Plan these out based on ease/speed of cooking vs. your schedule.
- Repeat family favorites – not all seasons are times to cook elaborate meals or try new recipes. That is ok! The real gift of dinners is the time spent together around the table.
- Plan trying a new recipe or cooking a complicated dish for a day where you will have the time and energy. I generally do this on Sunday nights because it is a treat.
- Add meals to the calendar – If possible add all your meals to the calendar, but at a minimum write what is for dinner. Knowing ahead of time eliminates time wasted figuring out what you have in the pantry, running to the store, or falling back on fast food.
- We found adding breakfast allowed us to not only set the table appropriately the night before, but avoided the pitfall of always defaulting to cereal.
- Ask for help – Delegate cooking to your spouse or older children if possible.
- My son, Jack, loves spaghetti and meat sauce. He asks to cook it once a week, and everyone loves it. This gives me a night a week I can do something else while dinner is being cooked.
- Be flexible – Some days life just doesn’t go as planned. Be flexible. Move around meals to fall to something simpler. Keep easy to cook staples as back up plans. And, know that sometimes it is ok to pick up pizza and eat off paper plates. The time together at the table nourishes our souls!
- Grocery shop once a week – After you’ve planned out your meals for the week, check your pantry to see what you have and what you need. Shop for all you need, and avoid wasted time running to the store every day. Keep staples stocked
- For a long time I did all my planning and grocery shopping list on paper. Recently I moved to Plan to Eat online recipe tracker and meal planner. I love the shopping list it creates for me – saves so much time! And I also order my groceries online after the kids are in bed, and we pick them up Sunday morning after church. While there is an extra cost for these services, the flexibility of when I plan/order, avoiding impulse shopping, and time saved is well worth every penny.
- Go-to family favorites list – Have a go-to list of family favorites that you can plug in. Plan these out based on ease/speed of cooking vs. your schedule.
- Prioritize your to-do’s –
- Be realistic! Just because you wrote it down doesn’t mean that you need to do it, you are the only person that can do it, or it needs to be done this week. Cross off things that don’t need to be done. Move what doesn’t need to be done this week to a “to-do inbox” list that you review as part of your weekly planning.
- Prioritize Not all tasks are equal importance. Order the tasks you jotted down on your new list or carried over from prior weeks in your “to-do inbox”.
- Schedule – Jot the task down on a specific day if it must be done then.If necessary, block time off on your calendar when you will do a large task. For example, if you need to help your child with a school project, put it on your calendar and make sure you’ve shopped all supplies ahead of time.
- Delegate! We are our weakest when we believe we are the only ones that can do things necessary for the family or home. This is setting ourselves up for failure and burn out. I know – I’ve been there, done that. Delegate routine to-do’s and tasks to other family members.
- Review with your family – Scheduling a regular weekly family meeting or spouse meeting to review the week is essential to ensuring nothing was missed. It is an opportunity to make sure everyone is marching to the same drumbeat. It is a great time to be clear about what you are delegating and expectations. Keep everyone on the same page with what matters and take out the guesswork of what is coming up or better yet what is for dinner.
- Do it!
- Plan your work, work your plan. A plan is only as good as the effort that goes into working it. A plan is nothing if it is not worked.
- Be flexible – things will come up and it is ok to deviate from your plan. Ultimately the goal is to keep you organized, your family and home running smoothly. Sometimes unplanned things come up and we just need to roll with it.
My dear Mama Bear, don’t burn out! In a culture that glorifies and rewards merely being busy, we must be counter-cultural. We must set our intentions for the week. Plan our quiet times and our busy times. We must live with purpose – only be busy doing what matters. Time is the one thing we can spend and never get back. Let us spend it wisely!
xoxo
Catherine