3 Tips to Prep for the Week Ahead

Mornings can either be fairy tale wonderful or hail Satan horrible in my house. When I'm on my game, it's because I planned ahead. Here are a few of the tasks I complete on Saturday or Sunday to make sure Monday through Friday are mommy meltdown free.

Image Credit

1. Meal planning and prep.

In this house, I devise the grocery lists and make the meal plans. My husband does the shopping and chopping. This divide of labor works well for both of us, although we switch it up as we need to. This week we shopped and prepped for the following dinner meals, half of which will be at least partially cooked in a slow cooker:

Chicken noodle soup
Chili
Fish with brussel sprouts and cauliflower
Hamburgers
Beef Stroganoff
Chicken enchilada soup and guacamole
Vegetable stir fry

We also pack lunches before we go to bed. Breakfasts consist of cereal, toast or eggs. My kids know how to make their eggs in the microwave, so mostly they feed themselves. Dinner leftovers go in lunches for Nathan. I have a lot of eating restrictions, so I usually set aside the ingredients of the meal I can eat and subsist on eggs, avocado, peanut butter, goat cheese and lunch meats throughout the week.

[Image Credit](https://unsplash.com/photos/-tYsPFKMm7g(

2. Family quick clean-up.

This is another divide and conquer task, one in which the kids are involved. Usually immediately after school or dinner, we spend 15 minutes as a family cleaning the shared spaces of our house. On the off-chance those shared spaces are clean, we support each other in clean-up of private spaces. Mostly this means having the kids bring their toys and clothes back to their rooms and turning on Roomba, our robot vacuum.

Image Credit

3. Laundry and dishes every day.

There are five of us in this house. Three are growing children. Two are gym junkie adults. Basically that comes to ten outfits a day between us plus towels, etc. We keep a laundry basket in our kitchen to catch castoffs and try to keep the laundry train rolling. One load a day can keep all the clothes in the house clean, blankets and towels on weekends.

Since we have a dishwasher, taking care of dishes can be simple. Generally, I unload and begin reloading the dishwasher every morning My husband takes care of the hand-washables. I wipe the counters. He cleans the sink. It works for us.

Of these three tips, we are absolutely worst at laundry. There is always a pile somewhere either to be washed or sorted or put away. There is most certainly a sock stealing fairy living in this house. It's become frustrating to the point Nathan and I have had several conversations about burning all the socks and starting over.

3 Tips to Prep for the Week Ahead

1. Meal planning and prep.

2. Family quick clean-up.

3. Laundry and dishes every day.

What keeps your week chugging along smoothly? What do you struggle to get done?

Recent Posts

Don't forget, best comment on this account or @nat5an each week gets 5SBD reward.