Friday, May 6, 2011

Time Management - Preparing for the Week

One of my biggest complaints in life is that I don't have enough time.  I always say that if I didn't need sleep I would be able to get done everything that I need to.  Since I do need sleep (at least eight hours) I need to find ways to maximize my time.  One of the ways that I try to do this is by preparing everything I need on Sunday night for the week.  Some of these things include:

  • Clothing - I try to make sure that I have five outfits lined up for the week.  I may not know what day I'm going to wear the outfits, depends on what kind of mood I'm in, but the different pieces are together.  What I try to do is actually put on one hanger the pants, shirt, jacket and any under garments that I'll need and hang this up in my closet.  This way when I get up in the morning I can grab the outfit I feel like wearing and I'm not rummaging in the dark for underwear.  This also helps protect you from those unfortunately times when you grab black underwear and decide to wear white pants.  Yes - it has happened to me.
  • Kids lunches - Now that my kids are older I don't have to do this but when they were younger and I had to pack their lunches I would do most of the work Sunday night.  I would grab five brown bag and form an assembly line.  I would make sure that each bag had some kind of fruit, chips, desert, napkin (with a special message written on it), drink and utensils.  I would make the sandwich in the morning so that it was fresh.
  • My food - This is pretty easy now that I'm on the Jenny Craig diet.  Depending on what day I weigh in, I put together a week full of food for me to take to work.  Since the food needs to stay in the freezer I usually write myself a note and stick it to my steering wheel so I don't forget it.
  • Errands - The bench in the kitchen is where I stack anything I'll need for errands throughout the week.  I try to do all my errands in one trip to eliminate a bunch of running around (helps save money to with the price of gas being what it is - ugh!).  I'm fortunate enough with my job because of the amount of hours I work in a week I have some latitude to leave early if I need to.  About once a month I try to sneak out by 3pm and run errands.
There are weeks when for one reason or another I'm not as organized as I would like to be.  I definitely notice a difference on how smoothly my week goes.

Any ideas on how you maximize your week?

2 comments:

  1. These are good tips! I struggle to pick out an outfit the night before, but how nice would it be to pick out the week!!! (I am gonna look for me a bench for my kitchen)

    ReplyDelete
  2. My husband is diligent about picking out his clothes every night but I'm just not that good! I've found the weekly works pretty well for me and gives me the flexibility to fit the mood I'm in that day. Good luck with your bench! Ours came with our table as extra seating, I use it for that purpose a couple times a year. All the other days it's our go to place for things we need to remember to take with us.

    ReplyDelete