5 Tasks to Complete on the Weekend For a Fantastic Week!

*Disclosure: some links may contain affiliate links. For more information on what this means, visit my disclosure page.

Are you stressed?

Are there not enough hours in the day for all the things you seem to need to get done?

Would you rather spend time enjoying life and having quality time with your children than doing normal, daunting, everyday tasks?

I do!!

I have felt like that before, and I feel like that every once in awhile, as well, especially when I get off track. (Such as for these past couple of weeks where I’ve been trying to focus too much on working on this blog.) And, I know, those questions sound like they are from a phony infomercial. But, I didn’t know how else to start off and I want to get right down to it; to help you find some more precious time to enjoy life more during the week!

And now, you’re probably wondering if you’re going to be sold some magical piece of equipment that will do all of your chores and house work for you.

Sorry! I don’t have anything of the sort.

What I have is a plan!

And, you will feel much more accomplished at the end of the day knowing that you did everything yourself and you still have some “free” time to do with what you want! Rather than have some machine do everything for you.

Like the saying goes, if it were easy everyone would be doing it.

So, how on earth are you supposed to find time for yourself or making your family happy by spending quality time with them; yet, still have a clean and organized home and healthy homemade food for most of your meals?

You have to plan and prepare for the month, or week ahead! There’s no way around it, unless you have a ton of money to pay someone to do it for you (that’d be awesome, am I right)! But, that way is definitely not as rewarding!

If you are a stay at home mom then you are probably used to spending a lot of time doing everyday tasks, everyday.

If you’re a mom who works outside of the home, you may try to do everyday tasks everyday but may not be able to. You have less time home during the day to get everything done. Either way, why spend time everyday on chores or things that need to get done, when you can batch the items together. And by batch, I’m not only talking about food preparation, but that is part of it!

How to Find More Time in the Day

The Benefits of Meal Prepping

10 Easy Ways to Simplify Your Life

Do It Once a Week (or month)

Believe it or not, you can actually get quite a few everyday tasks done in a single day. Maybe even in a couple of hours. This may be once a week, or even once a month, depending on the task!

And, it’ll do more than just prevent the stress and the headache from having to worry about getting it done every single day; day in and day out. But, it will also provide you with more precious time to spend on the activities you want to do as a mom. Like spend more quality time with your kids!

1. FOOD

Meal Planning

This is something that should only be done once a week.

If you work outside the home this will make your life a hundred times easier! It’ll save you tons of money, as well! Especially, if you currently never have time to make and bring your lunch to work.

The first step is to figure out if you, and your family, are fine with eating mostly the same thing all week (which would inevitably save you money), or if you want something different everyday.

For myself, it varies depending on the meal. I usually have a few different options for every meal of the day for myself and my girls. Breakfast is usually muffins, oatmeal, or smoothies. Lunch is either a sandwich or a healthier vegan dish, and same for dinner. I try to make things that I know my girls will eat, and food that isn’t too expensive.

When I worked nights at a call center, a few years ago; dinners for my family consisted of many different easy options for them to choose from. It could be a frozen meal I made or something as simple as a sandwich. I needed to make sure there was something at home easy enough for my husband to make for himself and our girls. If I didn’t, he’d end up having his grandma bring them fast food for dinner. I don’t know about you, but I’m not a fan of giving little kids fast food!

So, it really just depends on your situation! If you need meal planning templates to help you with this task, download and print the ones I created here!

Follow me on Pinterest to gain inspiration for healthy food to put on your meal plan!

Go Grocery Shopping

Once you have your meal plan figured (Sunday Morning) out you can make your grocery list and get everything you will need for the week!

Save money!!

This will save you money in a few different ways!

First of all, you will have a list, and if you stick to your list and don’t go to the store hungry; you’ll be less likely to impulse shop. And, to make things even easier, try to go shopping by yourself. This is one of the best ways to save money and to keep junk out of the cart and house!

When I go grocery shopping with my family, we end up spending at least twice as much on food!

Another way you’ll save money, and time, is by already knowing what you will eat, everyday! So, no fussing over there being nothing to eat and spending time trying to magically combine food together.

And, no more spending money on ordering out!

If you want to save even more money, I would recommend looking at the food you already have before starting to meal plan. This way you may only need to buy a few ingredients for your meals instead of all of the ingredients for all of your meals! That’s how I meal plan!

Or, if you can’t help but buy a lot of groceries each week, take advantage of the Ibotta app. It literally pays you to shop, depending on what you buy. Using the app, I got $1.50 off my non-dairy creamer one time, and it was already on sale for $3. The 5 minutes it takes to find offers I bought and scan my receipt with my phone is totally worth that! I even got $3 cash back on diapers before, twice! I’ve earned over $100 extra this year from using Ibotta!

Meal Prep

Now that you know to meal plan, and you know what food you’re going to make; find out what dishes freeze well for longer storage, and which ones are best when only placed in the fridge. This will determine how often you have to prepare your food.

If you need help with meal prepping, or feel even the slightest bit intimidated by it, but know you would benefit from it (and, let’s face it, everyone benefits from meal prepping); then go here!

And don’t only think about breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

We all know we need snacks! Whether it be fresh fruit or a baked good. One of the worst downfalls for trying to lose weight or eating healthy is not having enough healthy snacks on hand!

I know everyone has different opinions on what they like to eat or snack on; but, I’ll still give you some of my go-to’s for snacks and easy meals.

Muffins
Breakfast Foods

Other easy breakfast ideas that freeze well could be pancakes, french toast or waffles. You don’t even need to find extra time to make these; one day when you’re making them just make extra and freeze. I usually eat my breakfast while still making the extra ones to save and freeze. This way it really isn’t taking much more time. Then, you have an easy future breakfast that’s healthy, filling, and all you need to do is pop it in the toaster!

Smoothies

For healthier snack ideas, try smoothies! I use my nutri bullet to make smoothies and my girls love them!! They take a few minutes to put together and you can store all the fruit in the freezer. Sometimes even buying frozen fruit is cheaper than buying fresh and then freezing, especially when you buy in bulk. There are a few exceptions for buying frozen though, such as bananas and avocados. Bananas need to be bought fresh, peeled, sliced and then frozen. Don’t forget to throw in some type of green leafy veggie in your smoothie. I love spinach in mine; this needs to be fresh.

Energy Bites

And, have you ever heard of energy bites?!!!?! These are amazing, everyone has a different take on them, so you can customize them to your liking, and they freeze well! I make these once a month, too. Go ahead and try these apple spice energy bites this fall!

Lunches/ Dinners

As for lunches and dinners, whatever freezes well, double or triple the recipe when you make it. Then simply freeze any leftovers for an easy meal another day. I know, some meals do not freeze well and will have to be eaten in the next couple of days. But, even having leftovers in the fridge will help save you time and money! You won’t have to find something else to make or buy. Anything you can do for yourself now that will make your life easier in the future is worth the little bit of extra effort. But, enough about food for now.

2. Laundry

This one should pretty much explain itself. Pick a day to do laundry and stick with it! This can be on Sunday, when you get everything else done in a few hours, or another day.

I know, other people say to do a load of laundry a day. But to me, it’s not always quite clear how a family can wear so many clothes in a single day in order to need to do laundry everyday. Even if you have a couple of loads to do on that one day; it’s still easier to get it all done in a single day. All of your clothes will be washed, folded and put away that same day!

My husband used to do the laundry for our household. But, he would never fold the clothes or put them away. He would use the quick wash cycle and just throw in whatever clothes were dirty (probably following the 1 load of laundry a day rule). This resulted in there being a pile of clean clothes on the couch for me to fold the next day. This happened quite often and I got annoyed pretty quickly! Sometimes, I think he just does a certain chore poorly so he doesn’t have to do it any more!

But anyways, I decided to be proactive about it and started doing the laundry myself. I wash, fold, and put away all the laundry in one day. That part of my to do list has been pretty stress-free ever since!

3. Lay Out Your Clothes

This is so important!

How much time do you spend every morning trying to figure out what you’re going to wear that day?

And, how often do you realize you either can’t find what you want to wear, or you see it over there….

…in the basket, waiting to be washed?

This can cause unnecessary stress. To add to it, you probably woke up late or the kids need to eat before heading out the door. Which is a chore all in itself!

You’re the adult. You are supposed to be composed and put together. But, you’re still struggling to find that missing earring or the shirt that would go perfect with the pants you want to wear.

Whatever it may be, it needs to stop! You have a limited amount of time before having to head out the door. Wouldn’t it be much more pleasant for everyone, if you all knew what you were going to wear before getting up in the morning?

My suggestion for you is take twenty to thirty minutes once a week, or once every two weeks, to pick out your clothes and your children’s clothes. That is, if your children aren’t at the stage where they need to pick out their own clothes. Like my five year old, who refuses to wear anything I pick out for her to wear.

Maybe, if they are old enough you can instill this habit in them, as well as yourself. Just hang them up nicely, or lay them out nicely on top of a dresser. We’ll be working on that this school year so she can start doing it all by herself

4. Go Over Your Finances

Looking at how much money you bring into the home and how much is going out, can be stressful!

I am 100% on the same page with you there! Especially, when you are a one income family, like my own.

You may worry about finances all the time; whether you are fine and in the clear, trying to make a dent in the debt you have (thanks to those student loans you had to take out), living paycheck to paycheck, or trying to catch up with bills because you somehow fell behind.

You may worry about this every single day!

But, what’s the sense in that?

How often do you get paid?

Once a week?

Once every two weeks?

Those are the only times you should have to deal with finances and your budget. (Unless someone likes to spend money every few days and not tell you about it….)

And please, tell me you have some type of budget. Even if it’s like mine where it only consists of bills that need to be paid and money taken out for gas and some food, because that is all that can be afforded.

Bills are to be paid first. I’ve heard of some people paying themselves first, apparently it’s a way to provide yourself with a savings. If you can do this, good for you!

But, if you’re like me and can barely afford gas by the end of the month, it may not be possible. So write down your bills and other expenses that need to be paid for before anything else. Then divide the bills up depending on when they are due and when your paydays are in the month.

The form you have selected does not exist.

If you need more help with creating a budget, read How to Budget (When You Have No Money)

If you need an awesome workbook to get your budget under control, get the Budget Binder Bundle!!!

Or, if you feel like you need a whole course on learning how to budget, check out Busy on a Budget!!

Now, forget about those bills until you can do something about them…on payday!

5. Clean and Organize

Let me start by saying you do not need to dust or organize your movies everyday!

Only do what’s absolutely necessary everyday, and choose one day a week or one day a month to do the rest.

Do not be too hard on yourself if you don’t follow through.

It’s certainly nice to be able to follow through with everything, especially when it comes to having a clean, organized home.

But, really? Would you rather have everything in tip top shape, or spend a little more time each day finding out how your child’s’ day at school was?

There will ALWAYS be something to clean and organize, and you need to use your own judgment on what and when.

But, children grow up, and if you’re not careful they’ll be eighteen and out our door within a few blinks of an eye!

Even though I’m a big believer in doing certain things only once a week or even less often. There are still those chores that need to get done everyday. Such as cleaning up after yourself, and teaching others in your home to do the same. This can take some time and may be a challenge.

(My older daughter has been starting to take after my husband and leave her bath towel and dirty clothes where ever they happen to fall.)

Just let your family know how much you appreciate their help when they do something. Even if it’s just making sure their dishes go in the sink after they eat or toys are picked up after playing.

The older the child, the more they can start to take initiative to clean up after themselves. Maybe they can even help with some of the weekly prep work. I wish the same could be said about adults; they may require some more motivation.

To help you out with simplifying your life, take advantage of these ‘to do’ trackers! Write the task down once and check it off when it’s done; there’s a sheet for daily, weekly, and monthly tasks, along with budget sheets and templates for meal planning! Go grab it here.

To Sum It All Up – 5 Things to do on Sunday

1.) Make a Meal Plan, Get Groceries, Make all Meals and Snacks that you can Ahead of Time

2.) Do all Laundry in the same day

3.) Lay out your Clothes for the week, or for two weeks

4.) Don’t stress over finances everyday

5.) Deep Clean once a week or month

A few more words

I know prepping for the week can take some time, and some getting used to. But if you actually do it and stick with it; it will save you time, and your sanity, in the long run.

You can do all of your meal prepping in one day in just 2 hours or you can wake up an hour early everyday to make a breakfast for everyone; why not make enough for five days and freeze it. Save yourself the time and energy, and from being grumpy in the morning if you’re not a morning person.

Unless, of course, you love waking up early to make breakfast everyday. Then please, by all means, continue doing what you love. I love waking up early, but not to make breakfast!

Please, take from this what you may and use it to your full advantage; I wrote this to help you. If you feel discouraged at all and feel as if you would never have time to prep, believe me, you’re not the only on!

It will take a few tries to find the time and motivation to get things done. But your future self will love you for it!

This advice isn’t just to help save you time by batching everyday tasks together. It’s also here to help you out, if you follow it, for when you just don’t feel like doing something. Like cooking dinner, or trying to find something to wear when you feel like you have nothing to wear.

All of these tasks take time and energy out of our everyday lives and they don’t need to. As my seventh grade history teacher once told the class “work smarter, not harder”!

Do you have any other suggestions on what can be batched into a single day, a week, or month? If so, please leave a comment below to let myself and others know.

Related Posts: