Little Changes Lead to Big Results

Ever feel completely overwhelmed by everything you need to do? Does your mind ever spin when you're laying in bed at night as you think about all of your "To Do" tasks for the next day. Do you find yourself starting to shutdown because you don't even know where to begin? I know that before I started doing a few of the things I'm going to share with you, I did. Now I do a couple of things at the start of the week that makes my life easier on a day to day basis.

Plan Your Meals

I spend about 15 minutes on Saturday planning out what I'm going to make for dinners for the week. I take into account lessons, visitations (because we are a blended family), errands, etc and write everything down in my planner. After that I take stock of what we already have in the house for meals and write up my grocery list for everything else we need. We have a small whiteboard in the kitchen where I write our meals down for everyone to see and it's a daily reminder in case I have something I need to prep in advance. While I actually prep my breakfast and lunch for the week, dinner's I tend to just do the day of because I am a big fan of quick and simple dinners.

Schedule your Workouts

I'm not one to miss appts so if I schedule my workout into my day then I am far more likely to stick to it. For me it's one of the most important "appointments" of my day. So no differently than I plan my weekly meals, I plan my workouts. On week days I walk in the door from work and immediately change into my workout clothes. It's my reminder that I WILL get my workout in before I shower and go to bed. On the weekends my workouts depend on my schedule. I usually do them in the morning before we go about our day but some Saturday mornings I just like to take it easy and relax with my coffee so I pick a time later in the day that I know I can do my workout and set an alarm on my phone. My workouts are only 30 minutes and I know that I personally have 3o minutes a day that I can dedicate to myself. Sure I have work, laundry, errands, kids, household chores but I'm only kidding myself if I say I don't have a spare 30 minutes in my day.

Prep What You Can

My mornings are crazy with having to get myself, my hubby, my daughter and son ready and out the door so I need to do as much as possible the night before to lighten my load. Before I go to bed at night I make sure I have mine and my son's clothes laid out. He's only 2 so he doesn't care what I pick out for him but if you're kids are older have them help with the process. It's definitely a relief knowing I don't have to dig through drawers, closets or laundry baskets (because I seriously need to step up my game on putting clothes away from the baskets!).

I am a creature of habit so breakfast for me is always my kick ass superfood smoothie on the way to work so I portion out my fruit and greens into baggies and through them in the freezer. Then all I have to do is dump it all in my blender with some almond milk in the morning and I'm good to go. My morning snack is always oats so I set up my week's worth of oats in separate containers and BAM my morning food is set. For lunch I really love a big salad so I will put a couple day's worth together and keep them in the fridge so come morning I am just grabbing containers, throwing them in my bag and I'm out the door, shake in hand. I am all about keeping things as simple and easy as possible.

So the moral of the story here is spending a little bit of time at the beginning of the week will save you valuable time throughout the week. As busy mom's and women our time is precious so we need to do everything we can to make every minute count. Think about the little pockets of time that you can carve out to save yourself some time later in the week. Make it a family event when you can. Let the kids help get their lunches ready, let them help pick out their outfits and make it into a game. Whoever finishes first gets to pick the movie tonight.....If your kids are anything like mine, movie picking is a big deal!

It's easy to get overwhelmed in the sometimes chaotic beauty which is our life so take a deep breath and take it one day at a time, one task at a time or even one minute at a time. Find the beauty in the moment, because even though it may not seem like it, there is beauty to be found in almost everything. Life can be hard but it is also beautiful!