Meal Plan Mastery

“It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan.”

Eleanor Roosevelt

Are you a traditional type-A planner? Do you thrive on check lists, planners, and calendars, whether paper or digital? Or perhaps you’re more like me and planning and being organized doesn’t come naturally. Maybe you fall somewhere in the middle, although most people I know are one or the other. If you’re reading this post, one of these personality types resonates with you. Like previously stated, I do not excel in the worlds of organization, planning, and list creating. My intentions may be good, but I’ve always fallen short and semi-failed to execute the plan or list. Surprisingly, I have grown in these areas over the course of the last five or so years. But at the end of the day, I am still a person who tolerates clutter of any kind way too well, and am so flexible that I lack stability.

The older I got, I felt my margin for ebbing and flowing my way through life getting smaller. Because of this, the areas I decided to start improving my home organization. PSYCH! I wish that were true, but you’ll most likely never read a blog post about me mastering physical organizing. I did, however, invest my time and energy in my personal growth and development, time management, and meal planning. These three areas were becoming pain points in my life; it was glaringly obvious that change was needed to obtain more energy, peace, and mental sanity! My fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants ways have always kept me afloat, but with the complexities of life ever evolving, feeling afloat started to feel more like adrift on a good day, and drowning on a bad day. I found that just wishing for things to be better wasn’t going to activate change. Nothing changes if nothing changes, ya know?

Having worked in retail, service industry, education, parenthood and self-employment, I understood and knew the value of being more organized, but lacked the true know-how. So actually utilizing the art of planning was lost on me. Becoming a mother opened my eyes to the world of setting realistic expectations and the idea of a “loose routine”. I had never quite submitted to a structured schedule until I had to in the form of sleep training (that’s a whole different story and blog for another day). When I began my Arbonne business in 2014, I started doing more non-fiction reading on time management, grit, mindset, and leadership. My passion for food and cooking led me to more reading, almost studying, cook books. Even when the conceptualization of this website and community took root, I started poking around the internet, blogs, and various social media avenues to discover what was out there in the world of meal planning and recipe inspiration. The overarching message I found was this: some form of planning can and should have a place in your life, and your life can benefit from it. Planning should be woven into your life in a way that compliments your strengths, yet also provides room for growth within your weaknesses.

What’s funny is I never remember my mother having a plan for our meals (or really anything, for that matter), unless it came with her beloved Slimfast diet. I feel our parents’ generation gravitated heavily toward the fad diets, hah, but this topic is another post for another day. I cannot recall a single document with a meal plan, or notes my mom had detailing the week’s meals. Maybe some moms and dads had them, but I believe the concept of meal planning has evolved over the last 20-30 years. Is it because jobs, industries, and families have evolved too? I do not have sufficient evidence on this topic, but I probably should. Whatever the reason, I do believe we now have these options in the world because there’s a need. Speaking in terms of women (I’m only mentioning women for the sake of time and point of view; I do believe and support dads cooking, staying at home, and everything in between), I believe it’s fair to assume that women’s days had a different structure 50 years ago, and therefore planning didn’t have as big of a need. I could be wrong and am totally open to argument and other ideas. Nowadays, I feel like everyone is headed in different directions at a fast pace, and we have extremely full schedules on a daily basis. Because of this, we start to feel out of control and in need of more help, so we seek out solutions. Just like I did when I felt like I was drowning in life, specifically in the dinner department. And alas, this is the place where ideas are ignited, and things like meal plans are formed.

Similar to my classroom teaching days, I started making my own plans and sketching out weekly menus in my notebook. In the classroom, I frequently made my own worksheets, tests, and games because I didn’t connect with the purpose of the other documents I’d find. Leaning into my creative side, I’ve always enjoyed doodling and sketching out how I desire things to look. Typically, I gain inspiration from visuals and photos, hence why I enjoyed studying cookbooks. Images come to life for me, and get my thoughts flowing. I’d see photos of meals and think, ooh, I can cook something like that on Monday, and use the rest of the meat for another meal on Tuesday! Reading and perusing cookbooks helped me to also discover what worked for me and what didn’t. Fancy, time-consuming meals with hard-to-find ingredients were not for me. Not that those cookbooks don’t have a place, they just weren’t a fit for me and my lifestyle. I started imagining other moms out there like me, in need of simple but delicious and nutritious meals, spending their time picking through websites, cookbooks, and social media in search of help. Once I casually started my way of meal planning, I realized it could be helpful for others as well.

What I’ve created isn’t necessarily revolutionary, but I do believe it can be game changing. I’ve taken the best parts of everything I’ve read and learned over the years and combined it into a refreshing, pleasing document for me and you, complete with tips and tricks to help save time and mental energy, and areas for and with lists. My capacity for list making has grown substantially, and I even enjoy it from time to time. In terms of being visually organized, I like to use post-its for lists, and to create different sections on paper, along with using different colors for contrast. Being a person whose brain moves quite fast, I need the change in color and pattern to separate my information. In combination with all of this and the person who’s helped me create the website, we came up with a printable for my weekly meal plans.

The components of my meal plan are to plan, prepare, and execute, and includes the following:

• Getting Started section with tips
• Shopping and Prep sections with ideas and tips
• Always on Hand section to help keep your basic, daily necessities in place
• Each week’s needed items for pantry, refrigerator, canned, raw goods, spices, and freezer
• A week by week layout and monthly overview of the each dinner
• A grocery shopping list for the month and each week
• How-to, what’s needed and step-by-step instructions on how to make the meal happen
• Serving size, nutrition information and approximate prep and cook time
• Substitution and replacement ideas

You can find the meal plan, either a blank printable for you to fill out, or a 20 meal plan starter printable on the website’s landing page! It’s a freebie from me to you, and an accurate representation of my work-in-progress organization and planning skills. My goal and hope for you is that by utilizing these tools and method (if it is one), you will not only find a routine and way of dining to fit your life, but also enhance your life’s structure as well, helping to maximize your time and efforts. As I’m sure you’ve read at least once here on the blog or throughout the website, I am passionate and certain that making positive tweaks and shifts in your day-to-day, no matter how small, can create a ripple effect of positive growth for you and your family. I often say if I could just help take one thing off your plate, I’m doing my “job” and living out my purpose. Helping people is what I’ve always loved and longed to do. No list or organization required to do just that!