The Art of Meal Planning: It can be easy!
We all have our challenges, right? Let me share a bit about something that used to drive me crazy: meal planning and grocery shopping – not exactly my forte, but I figured it out and I've got a story to tell.
A few years ago I got married and started managing my own home.
The first year was a struggle. Every Sunday I would find myself facing the overwhelming task of deciding what to eat the coming week. And in that exact moment, every dish I knew how to cook vanished from my memory.
The first problem? I didn't keep a list of go-to meals. Procrastination had me convinced that I'd do it next week, but that "next week" never came.
If I couldn’t come up with anything myself, I would turn to my recipe books.
So there I was, glancing over recipes trying to figure out where to get that one weird ingredient I’ve never heard of and, as a sweet little bonus, getting hungry looking at the pictures ... YEI!
It’s one thing to cook for fun, then looking at those books must be a thrill, but when you’re cooking just for the sake of staying alive those books can be dreadful.
So many options to choose from and, as you've probably heard, making decisions takes up energy.
So there I was, wasting mine.
Once I finally had the meal plan figured out (in the least efficient way possible), I'd create my grocery list on whatever random piece of paper I could find.
Then, off to the grocery store (accompanied by my husband who still thinks eating the same thing every day forever is the way to go. Hakuna Matata).
I was always in such a rush to create the list that I would always end up buying more than I needed … or not enough. This resulted in either throwing away unused food or having to order takeout because we ran out.
Wasted money either way.
The guilt of throwing away hard-earned money due to a lack of planning was what finally did it for me. I needed to make a change.
So I scheduled some alone time to try to figure out if there was any process I could create around meal planning and grocery shopping.
A plan that I could just effortlessly follow each week.
And here’s what I came up with:
I repeat those 4 weekly meal plans over and over again and whenever I feel like mixing it up, I just schedule time to create a new batch of 4 weeks.
Once I had my 4-week meal plan, with their corresponding pre-made grocery lists, making small adjustments became a breeze.
No more takeout, no more wasted food … and no more thinking about the same things over and over again.
As it turns out it was pretty simple, it was just a matter of taking the time to rethink how I was doing things.
Once I had a system that was working for me, I got super excited and decided to turn it into a spreadsheet. (If you’ve seen some of my work you know I love turning everything into spreadsheets).
So here are some tools I created:
Option 1: FREE Meal Calendar
If you want to start small I designed a FREE template where you can store your dish ideas and use them to create your 4-week plan.
Option 2: Meal Planner & Automated Grocery List - Premium Edition.
If you want something more advanced, you can check out my Meal Planner and Automated Grocery List Builder.
How it works:
- Step 1: Customize your template by making a list of the items and ingredients you usually buy, and the meals you usually prepare.
- Step 2: Assign the ingredients that should be added to the Grocery List automatically for each meal.
- Step 3: Select your meals from the drop-downs and watch as items are added automatically to your weekly grocery list.
If you want to learn more about how it works, you can watch the FULL VIDEO walkthrough on my YouTube Channel.
Option 3: You can always go the traditional route with pen and paper.
I design all my spreadsheets using pen and paper first. It's a great way to start!
Whatever method you choose, the benefits of taking the time to analyze repetitive tasks and come up with a process you can effortlessly follow afterwards are endless.
So I would like to encourage you to schedule some time this week to brainstorm:
Some examples where you can apply this: Meal planning, grocery shopping, cleaning, deciding what to wear every day, planning your weeks, your content creation etc.
If it’s repetitive and stressing you out, it’s worth giving this a try.
If you need some ideas you can check out some of the other spreadsheets I’ve created below:
I hope this helps you in some way. I can't wait to share more with you!
Thank you for reading!
Love, Pao 😊👩🏻💻✨