This new year I had set up goals for myself to complete that would help make my life better and more efficient. These goals include waking up early, going to sleep early, sticking to a consistent skincare routine, taking time for self-care once a week, and planning meals. Meal planning is my biggest goal to accomplish because I feel like it is a good habit to get into as I progress further into adult life and the professional phase of my life. In this article, I am going to take you through my process of meal planning. Just for your information please know that this is what works for me and it may or may not work for you, so please adjust to your needs, schedule, and life.
The first step is to decide what meals I want to make. I usually will be craving something that week or have seen something online that I want to make so I incorporate all that into a digital list. This digital list is in my notes and holds what I want to eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the week.Â
Then I go to Canva where I set up a weekly meal planner and decide what days I can cook and what days I need a meal ready for me based on my schedule. This semester I can cook on Monday afternoons, Thursday mornings, and the weekends. So I set up the meals I have chosen by cooking on those days and any leftovers I have will be used for the days I cannot cook, which is mainly Tuesday and Wednesday nights. I like to spread out my cooking throughout the week but you can also cook your food in one day and then freeze it so it can be defrosted whenever you are ready to eat.
Once I have planned out when I will eat these meals, I need to figure out what ingredients I need to buy. On my laptop I will pull up the recipe for each meal, and on my phone I will make a grocery list. This way I will go through each meal’s ingredient list and know what I already have and what I need to buy, writing it down on my phone as I go. I prefer to have this grocery list in the Notes app on my phone because it is convenient for me to pull up so I can check things off when I go grocery shopping. I will also add any snacks I want for the week to this list so I can pick everything up altogether.
I feel like meal planning can be stressful if you do not know what to do, but you will not know what works for you until you try it so take that leap. My biggest suggestion is to know yourself; if you know that you like to eat out once or twice a week, incorporate that into your schedule. If you do not eat lunch but eat heavy breakfasts make sure your meals represent that difference. The best thing to do when meal planning is curating it to work for you because if you want to stick with it then it has to be helpful to your life, not an extra chore to complete.Â
I hope you will give meal planning a chance to help make your life easier, more efficient, and less stressful. Good luck!