Do you plan meals for your family? I know many women that create menu plans for their household – some plan out weekly menu plans, others go as far as to organize a monthly menu plan. They all speak of the benefits of planning meals in advance, which include easier grocery shopping, saving money, and eating healthier.

I have tried in the past to create a weekly dinner menu and used my Google calendar to lay out each day’s meal. When I planned our family’s meals a week or two at a time, I found a few things to be true:

• Grocery shopping was easier and faster. I was able to quickly make a shopping list based on the meals we had planned and could better stick to grocery shopping every two weeks to coincide with pay days. Very rarely did we have to make grocery store runs in the middle of the week, which often times ended up going over budget.
• No more “What’s for dinner?” debates. Not only did I avoid the daily struggle of thinking about dinner, which can sometimes be a point of frustration for many women, but my husband was also informed well ahead of time. He could easily look at the printed calendar on our fridge and know what the menu was for that day.
• Dinner responsibilities became easier to share. My husband can cook just fine and actually cooks certain meats better than I do. But, he’s the first to admit that when it comes to thinking of side dishes to complete the meal, he needs help. Having the dinner menu planned in advance resulted in him initiating the cooking process sometimes because he didn’t have to think about what to make, he already knew.
• We ate better. Not all of our meals were super fresh or healthy, but they were all home-made. Regardless of whether or not we took shortcuts by using pre-packaged foods, we were still able to control what we put into our meals, how much of it, and in the end, this created better meals for us than if we were to order out.
• We saved money. It’s true that just by planning a dinner menu, we were able to control our spending and many times saved on the food budget. There was much less eating out, more buying in bulk, and less grocery store trips. It was easier to keep an eye on the money we spent on food.

As I write this out, I can’t think of why we ever stopped planning our meals. I definitely plan to work on getting back into it and will hopefully start this weekend by creating a dinner menu for next week. The benefits of meal planning are sure to help our household’s balance and peace of mind.

Do you meal plan? If so, share with us in the comments about how you plan your family’s meals. Do you create a weekly dinner menu, two weeks at a time, or a monthly meal plan? How often do you grocery shop? What other benefits not mentioned have you found from meal planning?

More Meal Planning Ideas

• Sample Weekly Dinner Menu (my own dinner ideas that work in our house)
• Menu Planning Basics
• Spring Monthly Menu Plan
• Sample Menu Plan from Frugal Upstate
• Monthly Menus from Once a Month Mom

Most of us have tons of e-mail we answer on a daily basis. Even with the best social media routine, e-mail is just one of those things that keeps piling up. If you’re a blogger, you also likely receive pitches for story ideas and product reviews – probably turning down many of them.

Do you find yourself using the same response over and over again? Instead of typing out your response each time, why not use an e-mail template?

What is an E-mail Template?

An e-mail template is simply a response you save so that you can use again in the future. It will save you time from typing out a reply e-mail and will instead allow you to simply copy and paste your response.

How Do You Create an E-mail Template?

The simplest way to create an e-mail template is to save a document on your desktop with your response(s). I currently have a Notepad text document on my desktop with a few variations of my response to PR pitches. This is the standard “no, thank you” response for those pitches I’m not interested in.

However, I just found that if you use Gmail, you can actually save responses within Gmail as “canned responses” and simply insert your response into a new e-mail or reply. Doing that, you won’t even have to copy and paste the text, just click a button and you’re done! Plus, if you use filters, you can automatically reply to certain e-mails using your canned response, without ever seeing the e-mail. Here’s a quick how-to for setting up canned responses on Gmail.

How Does this Help You?

Just think about the amount of time you’ll save each day if there were less e-mails to answer. Or, how much faster you could empty your inbox if all you had to do was copy and paste a response or click a button for each e-mail!

Of course, you can’t possibly answer every e-mail in this manner. Some will still require you to type up a customized response. But I’m sure you can find a set of e-mails you receive that you can use an e-mail template to answer them faster.

Do you currently use an e-mail template? Have you ever thought about doing so?

Today I found myself home with my baby girl but also needing to clean. She didn’t go to preschool today, but I knew that I couldn’t let her being home get in the way of cleaning. This is a busy and short week for me due to the upcoming trip to Blissdom, so it is important that I stay on track.

So, I asked her to help me clean. This way we’d be doing it together and she’d feel involved. Plus, it helps her learn there are things to take care of around the house and that it’s good for all to pitch in as a family.

Obviously, young children have limitations when it comes to cleaning and helping around the house. What chores are preschool friendly, then?

1. Fold clothes: You can ask your preschooler to fold his/her clothes or even some towels. Since their clothes are so tiny anyway, they’re perfect for little hands to fold. My girl is also able to fold small towels, like kitchen towels. And, it doesn’t matter how they’re folded. I mean, really, if her shirts aren’t perfectly folded and lined up, life will go on.
2. Sweep: She may not be able to sweep the entire kitchen, but if she can sweep up a smaller area while I do something else, it helps. This works especially well if you use a swiffer, since all they have to do is push the stick up and down.
3. Clean bathroom sink: The first time I saw my daughter cleaning the sink in her classroom, I was amazed. “What are you doing?” I asked her. “Cleaning the sink! It helps my teacher.” I had no idea she knew how to do that! Now, she can run a sponge or rag around her bathroom sink while I clean the toilet.
4. Wash dishes: This started at my mom’s house. My daughter decided to ask her abuela if she could help her wash the dishes. So, my mom brought a stool by the sink, gave her a sponge and a bowl of soapy water, and said have at it. Since then, she’s done it a couple of times at our house too. Of course, we don’t give her the extra greasy or messy dishes, but she can safely wash a few cups and small plates.
5. Clean tables: My daughter’s been doing this since she was about two years old (maybe even earlier). It’s the easiest thing for her to do; she just has to swipe a paper towel over the table after I’ve sprayed it with some child-safe cleaner.

I’m sure there are many more household tasks and chores you can find that your preschooler can help with. If they’re anything like my daughter, they’ll love being able to help out. Just this morning she said that helping me clean was her “favorite thing to do in the house.” Now, mind you, her “favorite thing” to do changes from hour to hour, but still, for her to say it means she really does enjoy helping.

What chores have you found your kids can help with around the house?

Last week I posted a message on twitter and facebook about being happy with my daily work from home routine. Specifically, it looked like this:

Many responded that they wanted in on the secret and wondered if I would share what I’m doing. Though my routine is not extraordinarily different than most, I’ll go ahead and share my new schedule that is helping me to feel balanced. Keep in mind that this is a sample of an extremely smooth and good day. Some days my schedule adjusts to my personal mood or those interruptions we often have to deal with. However, the days that I follow this routine, are the days that I feel my best and feel like I truly have achieved work-life balance – for that day at least.

Photo by Joshua Stevens from Flickr

Sample Daily Routine for Work at Home Moms (WAHM)

• 6-8 am: This is wake up and get ready time. I’m not always up at 6 am – most days it’s closer to 7 am, but the plan is to be up, dressed, and get baby girl ready for school by 8 am. She helps a lot by getting herself dressed (most times I pick out the clothes for her the night before) and not dragging her feet when eating breakfast.
• 8-9 am: It doesn’t normally take an hour to drop off baby girl at preschool and get back. But, I like to allow some padding room in my schedule. So, as long as I’m home by 9 am, the rest of the day will flow more smoothly.
• 9-10 am: This is my time to work out and eat breakfast. I recently started exercising using my Wii and have found that if I get my work out done early in the day, it helps set my mood for the day and gives me a little boost of energy to keep going. The days I waited to do my work out later in the day or even in the evening, I had to force myself to exercise and I felt like I was dragging during the day.
• 10 am – 1 pm: This is when the bulk of my work is done. Whether it’s client work or blog-related work for myself, I try to do most during this time. I may not get all that I would hope to get done in this time, but if I can make progress each day, at the end of the week, I feel like I accomplished much.
• After 1 pm I grab some lunch, shower, and get to doing something for the house. Notice, I did not say I “clean the house.” No, instead I do something for the house. Even if it’s just one thing. For example, I can put a load of clothes to wash, or fold another load, or do the dishes.
• This normally brings me to about 3 pm at which point I try to get a head start on dinner. I also go back on the laptop and check in again on email and various social media sites to answer any comments, manage followers, etc.
• Around 5 pm, I wrap up for the day and either go pick up baby girl from school or wait for my husband and her to get home, if he picks her up.
• The rest of the evening is spent doing the dinner/family thing, along with the nightly bath-bed routine for baby girl. After that, the husband and I have some time together. Sometimes this means watching a movie or playing video games together, and other times this time consists of me on the laptop doing more work while he does something else. But, we’re still talking and interacting together.

Why is this schedule working for me?

The reason, simply, is that it contains a little of everything. I am able to work on the house, the blog, client work, and exercise. Though I didn’t spend all day on any one activity, I still got things done and overall feel like there was a good balance of things in my day. For me, it works. And again, I have to stress that not every day goes according to plan. There are days that I don’t get much done around the house because I have priority work that has to be done. Or days that I don’t do much work and concentrate on cleaning the house, if I feel like it’s slipping.

For those who have kids at home with them since they don’t go to preschool/school, you’ll probably have many changes to such a schedule. I know the days I’ve kept my daughter home from preschool, I had to tweak my routine to fit in activities with her. But, I involved her in the cleaning and exercise parts of the day and used my night hours more to compensate for the lost work time during the day.

I hope that in sharing my daily routine, you find some things you can change in yours to feel more balanced. Remember that the most important thing to keep in mind – and the one that has helped me the most – is that you don’t have to do everything in one day. But, doing a little of each will help you feel productive without losing your sanity.

What does your daily routine look like? Share with us in the comments below what you’ve found works for you and let’s all help each other find our personal work-life balance.

You might also like: 5 Tips for Working from Home for the WAHM.

Photo by Beth Sobel from Flickr

Today has been a very balanced day for me. I was able to work out this morning, did some client work, responded to a few emails, worked on this blog, and even put a load of laundry to wash. For me, that’s a great balance of taking care of myself, working, managing social media, and house work. It’s not much either – you notice I didn’t say I cleaned the entire house. Nor did I answer all emails. But, it was a good bit of each and I feel good with what I’ve accomplished today.

Of course, this is not an everyday occurrence. But, as I get more and more used to working from home, I find that I’m finding little things I can do to feel more balanced. Even if that means redefining what “balanced” means.

But, don’t take my word for it. Check out what others have to say about work-life balance and read their recommendations.

5 Resources with Tips for Finding or Improving your Work-Life Balance

5 Tips for Better Work-Life Balance from WebMD
Something that stuck out when reading this article was when the author said, “You would probably think twice before skipping out on work, a parent-teacher conference, or a doctor’s appointment. Your private time deserves the same respect.”

In other words, do not rearrange your free time and “squeeze in” something else. Treat it just like any other appointment in your calendar.

Work-life balance: Ways to restore harmony and reduce stress from Mayo Clinic
I loved when I got to the end of this piece and read, “Balance doesn’t mean doing everything.”

A lot of times we think that achieving work-life balance means being able to do it all. In fact, it should be about doing what’s important to you, and all that you’re comfortable doing.

Photo by yesterday_once_more0 704 from Flickr

Basic Steps Toward Work-Life Balance from Forbes
The author in this article talked to a staffing company, whose president, Loretta Penn, said: “You don’t have to respond to every e-mail or voice mail as soon as it comes in. Just because someone else deems something a priority doesn’t mean it’s yours.”

It’s a good reminder, especially for us digital moms that are constantly plugged in; just because an email alert popped up on your phone, it doesn’t mean the email has to be answered within 30 seconds. It can wait.

How to Find the Right Work-Life Balance: 6 Steps from Caroline Middlebrook
This was a blog post written in early 2008 by Caroline Middlebrook, who quit her day job in order to start an online business and now makes money blogging. In it she said, “If I’ve not spent enough time with family or not called a friend for a while I’ll get that nagging feeling in the back of my mind…When your life is all in balance you’ll feel good and when something isn’t right you’ll feel bad in some way.”

I know that from time to time I’ll get such a feeling and find myself reassessing the situation and even asking my husband for input. Many times, he confirms that I’ve been off in one area and concentrating too much on another. As the author suggests, trust your instincts.

Top 10 Ways to Balance Life and Work from About.com
This article is geared towards dads, but offers tips that are good for anyone. Tips such as: “Sometimes, the things that suffer in our busy lives have to do with our own personal health…Managing your personal health is essential to balancing work and life.”

I think all parents know about putting your own health last. This too, serves as a good reminder.

What personal tips or suggestions do you have for maintaining a little balance in your life? What have you found works for you?

Check out more work-life balance resources I’ve saved on delicious.

When working from home, it can be tempting to try to do it all. At once. But, it’s pretty near impossible to be able to work on your blog, work on client-related tasks, and clean the house all at the same time. That said, I’ve found there are a few things you can do around the house while working, that will not take too much time away from your work. A plus is that you might actually feel like you accomplished something.

Here are a few household duties you can complete throughout the day while also working: