Have you ever felt completely unprepared for the week when winding down on Sunday evening? If so, you can make a couple of small changes to your weekend to prepare for the week ahead.
Including these tasks in your weekend will make you feel much more confident going into Monday morning. Some of these tasks include cleaning up the house, preparing your food, and reflecting on last week.
You will also learn how you can easily implement these tasks into your weekend.
Continue reading to learn all about how to prepare for the week!
How to Prepare for the Week
Overall, it is simply a good feeling to finish everything from the previous week before starting the next. In addition to finishing any outstanding tasks, there are some additional things you can do to better prepare for the week ahead. These things don’t take too long but will save lots of time and stress during the week.
1. Reflect on Previous Weeks
One of the most beneficial things you can do to plan your coming weeks is to think back on previous weeks. By this, I mean to think back on what went well and what could’ve gone better.
To take this a step further, write down the good and bad as they happen. You can do this by simply making notes on your schedule for the week, maybe using different colored highlighters to indicate what went well and what could’ve been better. This will be very helpful to look back on when making your schedule for the coming week.
For example, maybe you had plans to go on a hike in the afternoon but didn’t end up going because it was too hot. You can take note of this and, in the future, plan your hikes for the morning before it gets too hot. By taking note of these things, you’ll have the best chance of doing everything you wanted.
2. Plan Your Week
Planning your week can be very helpful to make sure you not only get all of your responsibilities done but also are able to do the things you want to do. By planning your necessities, you can strategically plan your schedule so that you can fit everything in.
For example, if you know that you need to run some errands and want to go on a hike, you might need to plan around the weather. If you don’t plan ahead, it’s possible your hike would get pushed off to another week.
Not only do you make sure you fit everything in, it can make you feel more calm and put together knowing exactly what is coming up for your week. This way you can also assess if you’re able to do other things that may come up during the week like a work happy hour or an extra walk on a nice day.
In addition, if you plan ahead, you can make sure that you have some plans that you’ll really look forward to. Having plans like this will break up the week and make it feel like it’s going by faster than normal.
You should try to get at least one plan you’re looking forward to each week. This can be a night where you stay home to watch your favorite movie, grab dinner with a friend, or FaceTime someone you haven’t talked to in a while.
{ Related post: The Complete Morning Routine Checklist with Easy Steps that You’ll Actually Want to Follow }
3. Get Your Food Ready
Avoiding a trip to the grocery store during the week can really make a difference. To do this, you should plan out what you’ll be eating for the week and make a thorough grocery list before heading to the store. In addition to grocery shopping over the weekend, meal prepping can be very helpful in saving time and making the week easier.
For some people, meal prepping might mean making full meals and separating them into containers over the weekend. With this method, all you need to do is grab your container for the day.
For others, maybe meal prepping is simply cutting up their fruits and vegetables over the weekend to be cooked sometime during the week. This shows that meal prepping is a very large range, so even doing a little will be helpful during the week. This article gives more information on the benefits of meal prepping.
4. Do Laundry
No one wants to start the week with dirty laundry, so it is important to get this done over the weekend. Depending on your household, maybe you’ll have to do additional loads to do during the week. At least, if you wash all your sheets and towels over the weekend, your laundry during the week should feel lighter.
Also, if you have the flexibility to work from home, maybe you can even do a load of laundry on Friday to get a head start. In addition to making sure you have clean clothes for the week, it might be helpful to plan your outfits for the week. This will make your mornings run more smoothly since it’s one less decision you need to make.
5. Clean Up
While a deep clean of your house isn’t necessary every weekend, simply picking up any messes is very helpful. Having everything put away in its place will make your day-to-day tasks go smoother because you won’t have to spend time trying to find things.
Every week before Monday morning, you should make sure you have all the dishes done, and everything put in its place. If you’re interested in learning more about the benefits of cleaning your house as well as simple tips to start cleaning your house, take a look at this article.
{ Related post: 5 Suggestions for How to Stay Motivated Even When You Don’t Want To }
6. Do Something For Yourself
The weekend is a great time to catch up on self-care items that you might have been putting off. Maybe this means going on a long walk or catching up with friends and family.
This can also mean staying home to do a hair or face mask that you’ve been wanting to do. No matter what this looks like for you, it is important to do something that will recharge you. If you’re not sure what you should do, this article has lots of ideas for self-care activities you can do over the weekend!
{ Related post: 8 Powerful Morning Routine Habits You Should Start Tomorrow }
7. Review Your Plan for the Week
Reviewing your plan for the week shouldn’t take too much time. This is a great way to mentally wrap your head around everything you have planned and to feel more confident going into Monday.
When you start reviewing your week, you should double-check that there aren’t any conflicts. You can also take this time to confirm that you have everything you need for your tasks this week.
For example, if you have a dentist appointment coming up, make sure you have the address for the office. Or if you have an important meeting this week, make sure you have time planned to prepare for the meeting.
It might seem overwhelming to implement all of these tasks right away. Instead, choose a couple that seem the most manageable and get started with those right away. Once you feel comfortable with those, start adding in the others. Remember, this might seem like more work at the beginning, but once it becomes routine, it will absolutely pay off.
Thanks for reading, please comment below on any questions you have and take a look at the other articles below to learn more about morning routines, productivity, and time management!
Leave a Reply