Every Sunday, I sit down to play out the week ahead. I started this habit years ago and like many others, there have been years where I let the planning go and felt my world fall into chaos. There have been many areas in my life I have fine-tuned and maybe way over plan in some people’s eyes. But, it brings me so much joy to see my week and have tasks set in place.
Hopefully, some of these ideas will help you or spark a thought on something that you might want to structure in your week. Or you might be like me and just really enjoy reading how people live their unique lives. I won’t go into detail on how I plan many of these things right now. Some of them I plan out a year at a time, specifically homeschool and gardens.
Structuring Your Week with a Weekly Planning Routine
Home Planning Essentials
Paper Planner – I start off by getting my paper planner out and turning to the week. Everything is in my Google calendar, which we all share as a family. I just love writing in my paper planner, so I transfer everything that is scheduled throughout the week onto it. I also keep running tasks in my reminder app that I put onto the paper calendar as well.
Meal Planning – Once everything is written down I move on to meal planning my week. I can see that on certain days we will need crockpot meals and other days larger meals for friends that will be joining us. I love Recipe Keeper or any app that will house my recipes, let me meal plan, and create a shopping list. This one fits all the bills. A couple of years ago I bought the PDF Meal Plans from Passionate Penny Pincher and imported them all into the app. It did take a while, but has been so worth it! There are dinner and lunch plans I rotate through in those meal plans, which makes it super simple to plan the week. I also just sub out items for meals if I don’t have them. Breakfast is usually on rotation with oatmeal, yogurt and granola or eggs and sourdough toast.
Cleaning – This year, I bought a cleaning planner from Confident Mom. I printed it out and added it to a floppy binder. Every Sunday, I highlight what chores the kids do and which ones I have. Each kid has their own highlighter color so they can quickly look at the chore they have for the day. There are about 5-6 chores a day, which ends up giving us all one chore. Our house has felt amazing lately, and the kids aren’t nearly as overwhelmed because I’m not giving them random tasks. Then, forgetting I gave them a task and giving them another one. Then nothing gets done because I can’t remember all the tasks I gave everyone for the day.
Simplifying Homeschool with a Weekly Planning Routine
Lessons – We have five children at home ranging from pre-k to 8th grade. I tried to write out all the lessons but I just couldn’t keep up. About three years ago I started to use Homeschool Planet. This has been a huge help in keeping us all on track. It keeps time for subjects, which is what we need here where I’m from. It also allows the kids to login to their own profile and see what subjects and tasks they have for the day. I’ll have to get into all the things it offers in another post. In summer I already have the curriculum bought for the new school year. I’ll spend a day or two planning it all out in Homeschool Planet and be ready to go for the whole year. Every Sunday I sit down and review what didn’t get done and either move things around or just double the load throughout the week on specific things.
Co-op – I teach a Herbalism class to teenagers during our homeschool co-op. I do not have any easy way to prep this one as far as technology goes. I have a general plan for the whole semester before it starts. On Sundays, I sit down and review what I’m teaching for the week and whether I have all my supplies. What I have been learning about throughout the week on a specific herb will get planned into the lesson as well.
Balancing Work, Hobbies, and a Weekly Planning Routine
Work – I work part-time as a Web Designer. To keep my jobs, clients, due dates, and billings in order, I use Asana. I love this app so much! I’m sure if I dug into it enough, I could add everything above to this app. Minus the meal planning and homeschool lessons. Those two apps just can’t be beat for the subjects they are built for. When I sit down, I look at all the tasks that are coming up the next week, check emails, schedule builds, and look over anything I need to finish today (yes, I work on Sundays occasionally; I enjoy the work I do).
Garden – We keep a pretty massive garden. If you can imagine raising 5 kids. The goal is to grow all our produce minus some fruit. I started using Seedtime to plan out my garden. You log the plants you want to grow and then from there, it schedules your seeding, cultivating, direct seed, harvesting etc. tasks. It has been a game-changer. I check this every Sunday to see what needs to be done for the week, even in the winter just to fine-tune anything I want to change for the upcoming season.
Staying Consistent with Your Weekly Planning Routine
Although this all seems like a ton to plan, it might take me an hour or a bit more in the afternoon. Since I pre-plan so many things long term, it is just moving things around. Plus I just really enjoy planning and it helps my weeks go smoothly. Do you enjoy planning? What kind of things do you plan for? What apps or planners do you use? Let’s nerd out on planning!