I’m not going to pretend for a second that I’ve got my life together. I am, without a doubt, the target demographic for millions of productivity videos, planners, and apps. I struggle with attention span, I take on too much then burn out after barely a week has gone by. Even writing these blog posts is a struggle. What I’ve learned, though, is that by refining one small part of my life at a time, I can start to make incremental progress. That’s what it’s all about.

One area where I feel like I’ve honestly kind of got things nailed down is meal planning.

A major caveat before we start: I don’t stick to this system religiously. Some weeks, I over-plan and then I don’t have the energy to actually cook the things I’ve planned and obtained ingredients for. Fruit goes bad when no one wants to eat it, and then in the summer we get to deal with fruit flies. Meat has gone bad. Veggies have DEFINITELY died in the crisper drawer. I’ve even struggled with wanting to look at the food I’ve wanted because the guilt was so overwhelming that cleaning out the fridge became an Impossible Task.

For the most part, though? I think I’m doing okay. I’ve found reasonably healthy meals that we like. I try something new about once a week, or every two weeks depending on what’s going on, and I add anything that works for most or all of us to a running “Past Meals” list so that I have inspiration for the next time I do our meal planning:

And when I’m struggling, I’ve actually, miraculously, managed to ask for help. That might not sound like a big deal to some, but it is to me.

Anyway, here’s the meal plan format, all written out on a Google Docs page.

My 3-Category Meal planning Strategy:

“Long Prep”

This might include some lunch meal prep work, but also includes dinners that take a long time, like the spaghetti sauce recipe I inherited from my mother-in-law that takes 3 hours in the oven. Max 2 per week.

“Barely-Cook Dinners”

This is for busy nights, and rarely changes. I always keep leftovers on there, partly as a reminder that we can just do a leftover night. I also always keep a list of kid-friendly charcuterie or picnic foods that I have in stock. I try to keep fresh fruit and veg in the house (the pre-washed stuff as we can afford it), plus some pickles and some kind of protein like deli chicken salad or a summer sausage. Pickles and individually wrapped string cheese keep for a long time in the fridge.

“4:30 Cook Dinners”

This is very unique to me and our meal time of 5:30, which we got into once the kiddo started elementary school. I call it that because it gives me about an hour to cook, or even just warm up the oven since our oven takes like ~20 minutes to preheat.

You might notice that I don’t have lunches on this list. Right now it’s summer, so my son is in summer camp and his lunches are pre-paid, and during the school year, we pretty much stick to the standard sandwich/fruit/veg/treat lunchbox combo so I’ll add that back in a few weeks. On the weekends, we’re more likely to eat lunch out while we’re doing family activities like the park and library, or we can always have one of the picnic meals. For my husband and I, the “long prep” meal I make usually includes some kind of large batch cooking, so it leaves plenty of leftovers.

As far as when we use these meals, I don’t assign a meal to a day of the week, because there’s too much chaos. I’ll cook what I have the mental and physical energy to cook, with reasonably healthy back-ups if I have NO energy (or time).

I don’t do my meal planning on one specific day of the week, either.  Once I’ve crossed out all of the 4:30 and Long Prep meals I planned, I make a new list of dinners. I figure out what will work for our family, look up new recipes if I feel like it (or if someone recommended a recipe, or if I’m in the mood for restaurant copycat). I drop new stuff that worked down into the “Past Meals” list to save for later, and order my groceries for pick-up. If we get sick of the breakfast plan, or if some of the fruit or fresh veggies have gone bad because we never wanted to eat them, I’ll switch that up.

Oh, and even though this looks fairly healthy, we do still have treats and ice cream and stuff – but I don’t need a document to remind me to do that.

This type of meal planning is extremely simple, and that’s what makes it work for me. I have no idea if it would work for anyone else, but maybe it will. No big fancy apps, no AI telling me what to cook each day. It’s just me, trying my best, just like everything I do in life. I hope it helps you, too!