How to make a weekly plan as a stay at home mum

A simple guide for how to make a weekly plan to help you keep on top of everything as a stay at home mum.

I think we can all agree that life is very busy.

ALL the time.

One of the ways that we can stop our busy lives from becoming completely overwhelming is to make a plan for the week.

The weeks I make a plan, everything goes so much more smoothly.

Maybe not stress-free, but a lot less overwhelming than it could be.

Where to make your weekly plan

How you plan your week is personal preference.

I tend to use a bullet journal to plan my week.

It’s not perfect and I think sometimes that is the slower way because it takes more time than I expect to set my week up.

But, I do like that I don’t have to go on a screen to check it (once it is set up) which stops me going on side-quests.

And I do think that the actual setting it up and choosing a sticker to go on the page is a nice mindful-activity.

It’s definitely not one of the pretty ones you see if you look up bullet journals on instagram or pinterest, but it works for me.

I actually keep my master todo list, and pretty much my entire life on notion, but the day to day stuff is transferred into my bujo.

If you are a digital girl, maybe setting up something on notion will work better for you.

Or if you are a pen and paper kinda girl, then maybe try out a bullet journal or just use a sheet of paper.

Or even get one of those pretty weekly plan pads that you can pick up from almost everywhere now.

So once you have set up what you are using to plan your week, let’s get started.

Don’t overthink setting it up, you can tweak it and change things as time goes on.

Don’t let perfectionism stop you from starting (talking to myself more than anyone else here!)

Where to start with planning your week

I suggest you start with your calendar.

Add in to your weekly plan what you have got going on each day.

Knowing what you have got going on and seeing it mapped out in front of you will instantly help with your stress levels.

If you know what you have got going on each day, it’s going to help you work out where to fit everything else in and stop you overscheduling your days and making your plan impossible to keep up with.

For example, let’s say that you have a hospital appointment on Tuesday at 11am, and you are going to have to leave at 10am for it, and you probably won’t be home until about 3pm – planning in on that day to clean your entire house and do a hour long workout and have twenty thing on your todo list is just setting yourself up to fail.

So checking your calendar allows you to see how much time you have to get things done.

It allows you to plan whether you only have time for a quick workout or whether you have enough time to get a longer one.

It makes meal planning easier too, if you are out all day, you could plan to chuck something in the slow cooker in the morning, or just plan something quick and easy.

If you have a day at home, you could plan something that takes a bit more time.

So start with checking your calendar, and writing down what appointments you have got going on.

Add in your meals

No matter what is going on in your week, you are going to have to eat.

And there is nothing more stressful than it coming to 5pm and you have no idea what to cook for dinner and you have taken nothing out of the freezer to defrost.

So make life easier and less-stressful for yourself by making a meal plan.

I have kind of covered this part in the section about your calendar, but before you make your weekly meal plan, check what you have got going on each day and plan accordingly.

On busier days think about slow cooker meals or quick and easy meals.

For quieter days you can cook something a bit more effort or try making a new recipe.

Something I find useful when it comes to meal planning, is to have a go-to meal list – which is just a list with all the meals you eat regularly listed so when you are a bit stuck on what to eat for the next week you can just pull the list up for some inspiration.

While you are making your meal plan, write down any ingredients you need on your shopping list and plan in when you are going to have a grocery delivery/go grocery shopping.

I make my meal plan on the weekend and have my Tesco delivery on a Monday so we have all our ingredients for our weekly meal plan ready to go.

Of course there will be days where things don’t go to plan and you end up getting a takeaway but that is okay.

You can check out this blog post if you want a bit more help with meal planning.

Don’t make it complicated.

I tend to just plan out evening meals, but if you want to be more detailed and plan our breakfasts and lunches etc too – go for it!

Work out where you can workout

As good as our intentions are, I find that if we don’t write down when we are going to workout as an actual plan it somehow doesn’t get done.

Find a time in your day that makes sense for you to workout – for me that is first thing in the morning once everyone has gone to school etc.

Then plan it in.

Some days there might be a lot of appointments it will be impossible to fit it in, and that’s fine.

On other days maybe you have limited time, so maybe you can find a 10-15 minute workout that you can squeeze in.

Other days there might not be so much planned and that it a good day to fit in a longer workout or to go for a walk or something that takes a bit longer.

Just having it written down as part of your plan makes it more likely that you will actually workout.

And remember, if you don’t love your workout find another one.

You are meant to enjoy your workouts and they are meant to make you feel good.

I’ve written a blog post all about intuitive movement here if you want to read more.

Plan your cleaning into your weekly plan

Having a cleaning routine makes life a lot easier.

And a lot less stressful.

I have quite a lot of posts about making a cleaning routine or a daily routine to keep on top of your home if you need help with that.

Knowing what you are going to clean each day and knowing that there is a plan for it, relieves a lot of stress.

So if you don’t have a cleaning routine, start there.

If you have a cleaning routine, write it into your plan.

One thing that stops keeping up with a cleaning routine being overwhelming and impossible to keep up with is to be flexible with it.

With my cleaning routine, for example, I clean bathrooms on a Tuesday.

But if one Tuesday is full of appointments or I am not at home – instead of beating myself up that I am failing at my cleaning routine because it’s Tuesday and I am not cleaning the bathroom, usually I will just skip the Tuesday.

Tuesday will come around next week and the bathroom isn’t going anywhere and will still be there to clean.

But, if for some reason the bathroom REALLY needed a clean, I would just change cleaning the bathroom to a different day that week and either skip a different task that isn’t that urgent, or I would add it in as a second cleaning task on a day where I am at home all day.

Add in your todo list

I keep my main todo list on notion.

Then when I am making my plan for the week, I will head over to my notion todo list board, check to see what is due this week and then then add that into my weekly plan.

I usually write it as a list and then as I am planning out each day I add those tasks in to the daily plan.

This helps to make sure they get done.

When you start with adding in your appointments etc in first to your weekly plan, you can see how much time you have each day to get things ticked off your todo list.

If it’s a busy day, you should probably only put one or two things on your todo list.

For days with less on, you can be a bit more ambitious.

Be realistic with your task list, it stops it from being overwhelming and stops you from feeling like a failure when life happens and we tick hardly anything off.

Just remember, you are probably doing a million other things in your day that aren’t even on your todo list – like feeding pets, and making dinner and emptying the dishwasher.

I usually batch tasks, so maybe on a Tuesday afternoon I don’t have any appointments so I will get any email/paperwork type tasks done at the same time.

Doing similar tasks together helps us be more productive because it stops our brains from starting and stopping all the time.

If it helps, you can have a top 3 list of tasks to get done each day.

These are the if I get nothing else done today but I do get these three tasks done I will count it as a productive day tasks.

Then anything else is an extra, which hopefully you will get around to, but if you don’t it’s okay.

If you struggle with feeling like you aren’t getting anything done because the kids are home, or you are a parent carer or for whatever reason – sometimes a tada list helps.

Add physio, homework, kids stuff etc to your weekly plan

If you are following a therapy schedule or only doing things once or twice a week, it can be helpful to add them to your weekly plan so that you know that they are going to get done and you know when they are going to get done so it’s one less thing for your brain to think about.

Maybe you do walker or standing frame 4 x a week – add them in.

Or maybe you have an alternating physio schedule, add in on which day you are doing which tasks.

It might sound simple, but it’s amazing how much stress we are holding on to by just keeping all of these things we need to do floating around in our brains.

If your child needs to do certain things on certain days/evenings add them in to the weekly plan.

Maybe they need to read 3x a week.

Or maybe you have something you need to do a few times a week for your own therapies etc.

Add it all in to your weekly plan.

Use your weekly plan to reach your goals

If you are a goal-setting fan or you are working towards a goal – there are usually daily things you need to do to reach that goal.

For example, if you were trying to get healthy maybe you are trying to make mindful eating or 10,000 steps a day a daily habit.

Make a little habit tracker in your weekly plan to remind you to do those tasks.

And it is really fun getting a streak!

You can do this as a monthly thing if you prefer.

I tend to prefer a weekly one in the weekly plan, it seems a bit less daunting.

Add in any sections to your weekly plan that makes sense for your life

If you have something in your life that isn’t covered by the above sections, then add it in to your weekly plan.

For me, this looks like having a little section where I can add my instagram and blog posts for the week.

This isn’t my main content calendar (that is also on notion), it’s just a quick note of what I am doing that week and it just helps me to keep off my phone a little bit.

I like just having a glance at the week and seeing all areas covered.

If you have something similar you are working on – find a bit of space on your weekly plan to add it in.

Make it fun

Add some stickers.

Do some doodling, or draw some pictures or just decorate the page.

I have zero art skills, so I love a sticker.

Make the planner yours and make it fun because it’s going to encourage you to keep using it and checking it.

And decorating it or making it prettier if you are doing it digitally, is going to create a mindful moment for you too and that’s a really important part of taking care of ourselves and not losing ourselves in motherhood.

Let me know if you are going to give it a try or if you already have a system for making a weekly plan, I would love to see it!

Beth x