Thread: Time management (fitting in everything that you need to do in one day)

Tough schedule! I like the part about preparing food on the weekends. Too hard to cook during the week. Not enough time. Good luck!

It's not so tough actually - once you get into the routine. Although it's rigid - following it guarantees that I get to do everything I need to do in a day - and still get 8 hours of sleep.

I thought I'd post a weekly menu so you can see how cooking once a week works out :

Last week Sunday I prepared:

Chicken Curry
Sauteed Cabbage with carrots and onions
Chicken in cream sauce
Spicy Shrimp ( peri peri + lemon + paprika)

For starches we used :
brown rice ( Steam Fresh has some great frozen brown rice that can be nuked in 4 minutes)
Cous Cous

For vegetables:
We keep bags of vegetables that can be steamed as needed.

Total time to prepare 2.5 hours on a Sunday

For lunch daily:
Prepared in 15 minutes each night before sleeping
1 sandwich (turkey, tomatoes, black pepper, mustard, lettuce, and pepper jack cheese)
1 cookie
1 yoplait yogurt
1 piece of string cheese

For breakfast :
I actually keep my breakfast in the office - granola type cereal and milk in the fridge at work



So 2.5 hours and I manage to eat a different dinner each night.


In addition to all of this - we keep about a dozen boiled eggs in the fridge.


This Sunday I prepared the following dishes :

Grilled chicken in the oven
Homemade lasagna
Red beans dish to go with rice

Time to prepare - 3.5 hours

Starches to be prepared on demand:
brown rice
cous cous
squashes

For vegetables:
We keep bags of vegetables that can be steamed as needed.

I made a slight variation to the lunch menu - swapping out the cookie for a granola bar.

This routine allows for healthy eating, regular healthy snacking all day, and a different meal each day. It's worth the 3 - 4 hour sacrifice on a Sunday.

If there's interest - I'll keep posting weekly menus and how they can be stretched to feed two for a week.

Originally Posted by Katarina

I have struggled with the ability to juggle everything that I want to do in one day. For starters, my job is extremely demanding. Last year I really struggled with keeping a normal work schedule. An erratic schedule actually causes complete havoc messing with sleep patterns, making it hard to plan days, and destroying any semblance of a normal life. I have a lot of websites that I eventually stopped updating because I didn't have time. I am also a Final Fantasy XI player, but it's very time consuming. Therefore my FFXI playing was also erratic.


For 2010, I decided to create a regiment that will allow me to do all of the things I need to.

The goals of this regiment are :

• Exercise at least 4 days a week
• Study for an hour daily - in preparation for the GMAT
• Update my websites on a daily basis
• Recover at least 5 hours of productivity time

So my regiment looks like this :

Sundays - Prepare and freeze food for the week (so I don't have to cook)

Daily regiment :
5:00 AM - wake up
5:00 - 5:45 work on websites
6:00 drive to the gym
6:30 arrive at the gym
6:45 start workout
7:45 finish workout
8:00 finish showering / changing
8:15 get to work
5:00 leave work
6:00 arrive home
6:00 - 7:00 study for an hour
7:00 to 7:30 eat
7:30 to 8:30 work on websites / play video games
9:30 - 10:00 sleep

This routine is tight but it allows for approximately 7 - 8 hours of sleep every day. I leave Wednesdays as the day of rest. I'm only in the first few weeks of this regiment, but it's definitely allowing me to fit in the major things I need to do from Monday to Friday. It also leaves Sa****ay and Sunday for socializing.

Finally, this is my first post and I'm glad to be here !

wow. that requires a lot of discipline. lol I dont think i could keep it up

It isn't really that bad. By doing all of this - I can get a lot of things done at once. There's no way I could live my life like this - but for the short haul it works !

I thought I would follow up with what has "worked" and "not quite worked" with the cooking plan.

1 - I've discovered that anything over 3 meat dishes is overkill - and doesn't get eaten.
2 - Making 1 - 2 lb of steamed shrimp makes an easy filler for sandwiches and a healthy snack
3 - I added baby bell cheeses to the cheese mix. They aren't a bad snack
4 - If you want to save time and not have to make lunches as such - you can create a "bag of lunch items"

My typical bag includes:

a string cheese
a baby bell cheese
a granola bar
a banana
a yoghurt
possibly a 2nd granola bar - healthier like the Kashi ones

I eat one item every 1 - 2 hours - and by the time I'm through it all - it's 5 pm and time to go home!