Struggling to Find Time to Meal Plan?

When it comes to meal planning, are you like most of my clients who find their struggles are:

a. Finding time to plan
b. Making a shopping list
c. Fitting cooking into my working week

If this sounds like you, don’t worry – you are not alone!  Depending on your Meal Planning Personality® you need to tackle each of these slightly differently! The guides go through exactly how to approach this, but I thought I’d share some tips over a few upcoming blog posts that will help you all immediately!

First we’re tackling: Finding Time to Plan

This is often a tricky thing as it depends on your Meal Planning Personality®!  The question we need to know is HOW you plan and decide what to cook?

• Are you like an Intuitive and you really just use the same sort of ingredients and see what you feel like each day?
• Or are you like an Enthusiast and you spend AGES on planning?
• Are you a Supermarket Strategist and decide to plan around when you get your junk mail?

What does your planning time look like?

Too often we make it difficult – getting out ALL our cookbooks and spending way too long deciding what to cook!  Whatever Meal Planning Personality® you are, start with creating a list of recipes you love to make. This way when you go to plan it is easier and will save you time.

Even Intuitive Meal Planning Personalities®  need to cut themselves some slack and realise at the end of the day when you are overtired, your need to be inspired will take a backseat and will be overrun! I don’t know about you but when I am tired I DON’T CARE what I eat. As long as I have good healthy food available I will always eat that. Take the same approach – when you feel inspired to cook – go with that! When you know on certain days you will be dog tired, don’t be surprised by it = go with it and eliminate decisions by PLANNING WHAT you’ll eat.

All personalities need to get in the habit of looking at their schedule – what do you have on? The aim is to make as many decisions redundant as possible…!  Our next post will share some ideas on how to map this out by looking for themes in your schedule!

What lists can you start with to make planning time quicker?

Some lists you might start with are:

• BREAKFAST + EASY LUNCH IDEAS and keep them on the fridge. See blog post here: https://www.mealplanningyourway.com/2015/02/26/breakfast-recipes/
• PREMADE MEAL ideas – these are the bulk meal ideas you can make ahead and freeze (if you have kids get them involved in writing these up e.g. Curry, Spaghetti).
• SALADS/ vegetables that you can prep ahead on a SUNDAY NIGHT that will make life easier. For example can you CHOP CARROTS etc for morning tea snacks?
• MORNING/ AFTERNOON SNACK ideas (if you have kids get them to write this up too). Can they help making these up after school (e.g. on a monday for the rest of the week/ Friday or on the WEEKEND). If they are old enough remind them they must decide on WHAT to cook and ensure INGREDIENTS are on the shopping list.

Now I would love to hear from you!  Tell me what other strategies have you found helpful?  I hope these few little tips have been helpful and inspired you get organised with LISTS and cut down the amount of time you need to plan!

Don’t forget – Click here to take the quiz and discover more information on the Meal Planning Personality® Profiles.