5 Things To Do On Sunday To For A Calm Week
I see Sunday evenings as the jumping board to a successful week.
While some people bemoaned that their free time is coming to an end, I use Sunday evenings to make sure that I will have a good start and continued success throughout the week.
Why Prepare
Preparation is key to success. If I fail to prepare, I end up with a week that is spent doing a lot of the wrong things, battling fires and running around like a chicken with its head cut off.
When I take the time to prepare using the following steps, I find my weeks go much smoother.
The 5 Things I Do For A Successful Week
1. Plan Your Meals
Food planning is one of the most important things you can do to keep yourself healthy and on track.
Have you ever come to lunch time without a packed lunch and grabbed a fast food lunch? Or even worse, raided a vending machine? Or come to dinnertime and realize there’s nothing planned so you either order in a pizza or you go out and grab something fast that’s not particularly healthy? How did you feel afterwards?
Planning if you can save you both of these scenarios. When you plan your food you end up having more control over your diet because you control what you eat. You save money as well. It’s much cheaper and healthier to make food at home not only for lunch and dinner but also for breakfast.
The simplest thing to boost your week on Sunday is to figure out what you’re going to be eating for the rest of the week.
I like to make sure I have several breakfast best options available, such as hard-boiled eggs high-fiber bread for toast and bananas.
Also, I also like to plan out what I’m going to eat for lunch. This is been crucial in my success with my weight loss and I can spend less time thinking about what I’m going to eat and just eat the healthy options I have brought.
Menu planning for dinner makes it easy to work around our schedules. On Sunday evenings, I know what the meals are going to go going to be for the week and I have the ingredients on hand. If our schedule changes I can rapidly make adjustments so that we’re not having to eat out.
If you ever done this it’s not all that hard. All you have to do is pick some simple meals and make a list. If you know that you’re going to be particularly busy on one day pick out something simple. We’ve had breakfast for dinner on days that are busy or a healthy pizza option that we make with English muffins or tortillas.
2. Clothing
Figuring out what you’re going to wear for the week can be a big timesaver.
If you’re not a morning person ()as I am not a morning person), it can be a great relief to know exactly what you’re going to put on when you get up in the morning.
I’ve also found that this allows me to take a look at the weather for the week and make some simple adjustments in my wardrobe. If I know that I’m going to be going from work to the gym on a given day I will pack my clothes and set them aside; that way I know I need to wear something that is easy to change out of.
The other thing clothing planning saves is laundry panic. If I plan on clothes on Sunday, I know that all of the clothes are in wearable condition. I’m not taken by surprise by stains or missing buttons or dropped hems.
Planning of the clothing is very simple. Take a look at your calendar, look at the weather, and figure out what you’re going to wear.
3. Calendar Review
One of the reasons that you need to prepare your calendar for the week ahead is to know what is coming at you. It’s important to know what’s coming, so that you can prepare in a timely fashion.
It prevents waking up in a panic one morning and realizing you have to show up at a school with three dozen cupcakes. If you look at your calendar and see that the class party is coming up, you can adjust and make the cupcakes ahead of time…rather than running to the grocery store at 7 in the morning.
The other thing about looking at your calendar is that you get to see gaps in your schedule. This gives you an idea of when you will be able to fit in project and goal work, and to make sure you are spending enough time with family, friends and recreation.
4. Projects and Goals
The next thing you need to do is take a look at your projects and goals.
Remember, if you do not choose your priorities, somebody else will choose them for you. And that’s never a fun thought.
This is the point where you take a look at the things that you would like to do and look at your calendar to find the gaps that you can do them.
We all know that we have obligations that can’t put off, such as work and family and house maintenance. In the rest of the time is when you can do your own projects. But you can’t do them if you don’t plan for them.
Remember that work will expand to fill all available time. Planning to work on your goals and projects will allow you to keep that time available for things that are also important to you.
5. Load Balancing
This last part is something that I do every week that helps me maintain sanity.
Some days are busier than others. My task list are full, and the things that I would like to do often expand to fill more than one page. By load balancing, I take a look at what my load is each day and try to even it out based on my calendar and other obligations.
I make a map of my week filling in work time other obligations in time for my projects. And then I take a look at the time that is left and schedule my tasks to work on those days. I can see, based on the number of tasks I have tentatively assigned to each day, how much I can do, and then I balance that against the open blocks on my calendar.
If you want to know more about how I do this I’ve made a video on how I load balance. This is available for my Patreon subscribers, and will come out on Friday, 27 July. If you’re interested in seeing this video, please consider supporting me at Patreon. For as little as one dollar a month, you get exclusive articles, videos and other content.
Action Item
If you don’t already do a weekly plan, try doing one today for the rest of the week. See if it makes the week run a bit smoother.
