186 | Simplify Packing Lunch & Dinner Meals on Busy Nights

We are in the thick of a back to school. Everything today is the final episode in the back to school series that was a combination from the international edit podcast and the peace and productivity podcast. Today, we are continuing to help you calm the chaos when it comes to any issues that have to do with home and a back to school and how the things that we’ve been sharing can help you move ahead and streamline everything at home.

Now purchasing school supplies and going back to school, shopping to stock up on all the stuff that’s needed is one thing, but tackling lunch and dinner is another, and it’s a big issue that what’s for dinner saga is never ending until you implement a meal planning method that works for your family.

The method needs to simplify grocery shopping, save money and time and cut down on a lot of stress for you. Planning ahead, and a little prep makes it possible to get lunch packed and dinner made with much less stress than you have when it comes to these dinner meals right now.

 [00:02:00] It is hard to believe we are back for the Friday episode. This is our final episode of the Back to School series that we are doing on the Intentional Edit Podcast and the piece and productivity podcast. We have been going back and forth each day this week, so if you have missed any of the episodes, we started on Tuesday on the Piece and Productivity podcast.

Then we moved over here, and then we went back over there on a Thursday and now it’s Friday and we are back here. Yes, it’s a lot. It’s been so fun and we’ve really touched on a lot of different topics and a lot of things that you can do to set your homes up for a successful school year. these all are kind of focused around routines and when we started, we were brainstorming different.

Problems that come up with our clients and friends and just common things that are issues this time of year. I don’t think we intentionally thought every episode is going to revolve around something that has to do with the routine, but in reality, routines. Solve our problems, and when we are intentional about setting up routines, then we eliminate a lot of the stress and the overwhelm of the day-to-day activities and the tasks and the chores that we are trying to accomplish.

And just the things that we try to get done throughout the day, the routines, the planning ahead, the preparing, all of those things that we’ve been talking about, they truly simplify and they do make everything easier. Mm-hmm. One thing that comes up, Is preparing lunches, and I feel like we’ve touched on lunches each day, but.

The packing of the lunches, and I think I mentioned this, I can’t even remember which day it was. The reason that we have success with the lunch in my house [00:04:00] and snacks and dinner and the struggles that go along with the busy week nights when you’re being pulled in different directions and you might not be at home for a significant chunk of time to plan a dinner or.

Pack the lunches or even the to-go snacks. If your kids go from school to an afterschool activity that’s in a different location, then there might be a bigger snack there, and that might be actually more food and more nutrition than the lunch. when we think about all of these things, they can be stressful.

I know I’ve come up with systems in my home where. we’ve kind of eliminated those issues because we are able to plan ahead and because we use the weekly routine, like we talked about on the episode yesterday, we have incorporated preparing of the food ahead of time in two, the weekly refresh and restock and what I do each week.

So that, that’s one thing. And I know like you had talked about, With your kids, and like your son might be wanting to pack a lunch this year for himself, so mm-hmm. you have that new part of your routine and you are gonna have to plan ahead and see what, like, what does that look like in your house?

How will you make that happen so that he can be successful with that rather than you doing it. Yeah. You know, it’s so interesting because, and I’ve heard this a few times, sometimes I struggle. I will be honest with like the prep and the like meal prep because I do still have that vision of like, I.

It has to be a whole day and it’s all, you know, and it’s boring and it’s overwhelming and I could do it once, but I never consistent, like I’ve been there, I’ve done that. So this is just, it’s just shifting. I think for me, shifting my mindset of like, The way you talk about it, it’s just so flowy and so, so natural and simple that it’s the to-go snacks.

It’s, and I’m thinking that for us, what, how [00:06:00] we might approach this, again, this is me brainstorming, is with all of you, is having like a lunch bin and a snack bin, and. Having those pre-made. Pre-made, it depends on what it is, right? But the ingredients, at least the things that we wanna go into it. Ready. So whether that’s, you know, cut up veggie, I feel like the, the produce is the hardest, at least for us, right?

The protein and the produce are, are like the two things that at least for me are like the biggest struggle. So what does that brainstorming ahead of time? That will be the biggest thing is to get clear. And that is where I also is get, get clear on what were the pieces of the lunch. Look like to where I feel comfortable with, like, that’s a decent lunch, right?

if he, again, we could fall into, if I just let him do the whole thing and then it’s who, who knows what’s going into that lunchbox? the way I’m going to approach it is going to be, again, when we sit down at our family meeting and we say even for just we go over the routines, one of the other things we’ll do is brainstorm what are some of the, the rotating breakfast, lunch, and dinners that even specifically breakfast and lunch.

But because dinners we’ve got a little bit more of a handle as far as like family favorites, but specifically for breakfast and lunch, right. Let’s. Make a list now when you’re thinking about it, and then that’s what we’ll we’ll work off of. Right? So then I know when I’m grocery shopping, At least for this month.

Maybe we do it each month, right? Maybe we do it each season, but then I know what are the ingredients in the groceries that I’m going to include, and then we will go, like you said, go into including that in my weekly prep because that is not something we’ve done that is definitely not prepping those, you know, the lunch.

It’s definitely been. Especially for some reason breakfast, like sometimes they’re not hungry, sometimes they’re just not in the mood. But if we [00:08:00] make a list and we say, this is what we’re doing, you can choose from maybe these two things, right, but not. You know. Right. Simplify it. Too many. You have two or three breakfast options and this is Yes.

You get one of these, one of these two or one of these three. You don’t have seven things to choose from today. Exactly, exactly. Because then we’re, yeah, we’re all, then, we’re all over the place in that point. I’m totally with you where the concept of meal prep. Or going every week and having to make this meal plan.

Years ago I created a different type of meal planning system that is reusable because I felt like it was such a waste of time every single week. Of course, with perishable items, there are things that you have to do every single week at our house when I do the grocery shopping, then part of that is coming home, washing the fruits and vegetables, and then like this week was the first week of school, so I.

Cut up the carrots. We didn’t get baby carrots. I cut up big carrots. Those were in their little baggies, and there were enough for each day of the week. Then same thing with grapes, so I put grapes in their little baggies and whatever you’re using, if you’re using a Ziploc bag or some type of a, a bag that is supposed to be better for the environment or a stash or bag or a little like, Cute little bento box or something like that.

There are different things that you can do, if you have a number of kids that are going to have grapes each day and their lunch this week, cut the grapes so that when they’re on the line, they, all you have to do is pick up one little chunk so you’re not dealing with that in the morning.

Spend one minute doing that. The week of when you wash them, and then they’re just sitting in their big bowl. So when you pack the Bento boxes, you just grab the one piece that’s the right size, put it in, and then you’re not wasting the time that morning. It’s things like that, that take a minute here, a minute there.

You put it all together and you have it. You have those things done and ready. When you did the grocery [00:10:00] shopping, or maybe it’s the day after, and depending on the ages of your kids, they can be involved in some of that too. Do they need to cut, you know, slices of cheese and have that ready? Or what do they want to eat?

What will they eat and what do they need to have for the nutrition and Yeah, that you’re trying to make sure that they have during this school day? Yeah, what you, when you were talking, it was making me think kind of like the batching concept, right? That saves us so much time. We’re so much more productive, so we have to wash the grapes at some point.

We have to wash the produce, like you’re saying, like either, and it doesn’t, it doesn’t always for me work to get the groceries and then prep. Ideally I would do that, but whenever you are washing. Just take that ex, like you said, take that exercise. I’m getting excited about that now because I can, Ima, I can envision it.

I can see myself actually doing that. Being consistent with it, because literally like grapes and carrots are two things that my kids will eat. And I’m like, yes, baby. Carrots and grapes even. I mean, you went the extra step to get to cut the carrots. I’m like, good for you, because I’m like all about the baby carrots.

And so just again, because then I’m picturing that will save me and then putting them in the baggies and in the lunch bag. The lunch bin that’s in the fridge. And when my son goes, then he’s packing his lunch. Okay. I want a grape, I wanna carrot it. Right? Like I, I just feel like that’s very, makes a lot of sense.

The other thing too, I just just heard this, this is not something that I came up with, but kind of like you’re saying, like, At least the simplifying part and not thinking that, oh, it has to be this huge, like an actual, like a, a full meal necessary. Like it can be a more like a charcuterie situation, right?

Like a, like little pieces. Like they still get their protein, at least for us. I feel like that it can be whatever you want. If they like leftovers, that’s ama, [00:12:00] that’s even better. They’re, that’s easier, but Right. Like, Crackers, cheese, pepperoni, that kind of thing. I feel like that’s, that was our go-to for a while.

Well, and when do they have lunch at school? Because like I know some years you’re gonna have a child that has lunch way later in the day and they’re starving by the time lunch comes, even if they had a snack. So they’re going to eat a lot if they have lunch early in the day. They’re not that hungry. So a couple little more snacky type foods are what they’re actually going to eat.

They’re not going to have a big meal because they were at home two hours ago having breakfast. So again, we have said this on every single episode, you’re personalizing. The things that you’re doing for this time in your life and in six months or next year, it might be slightly different. So when you get your routines dialed in and you really make them work for you, when you have to modify one little thing here or there, it’s not a big deal.

You just intentionally make that change. Like you intentionally created the routine and you move on with it. And it’s almost a seamless change because it was easy to do. Yeah, a hundred percent. So in terms of lunch, you wanna prep as much as you can ahead of time for your week. Get that ready if you have things in the pantry.

One, a good option. Two, if your kids are packing their own lunch, put a. A sign just with a number one or a number two. Like they can take two things from this bin and one thing from this bin, or they have to have whatever the rule is in your family. Maybe they have to have two vegetables and a fruit, or a fruit and a protein, or you know, whatever it is, you can get as specific with it or as general.

As you want to and as detailed as you feel like it needs to be for your family, but moving on from the lunch, the dinner is a big one where it is a big struggle. And I think right now, especially with the rising cost of groceries, having a plan where that you can actually follow for dinner, that [00:14:00] is a huge thing.

And easy meals that your family will actually eat is really essential to having success with the dinner time. When you think about meal planning sometime, as I know, years ago before I came up with a meal plan that actually worked and that we stuck with, I was constantly thinking I had to come up with new recipes and new meals.

So part of the meal planning was spent and it was a massive amount of wasted time. Was spent looking up these new recipes. I don’t need new recipes when you really think about it, because I know what my family eats, I know what they like, and I can stick to those things. And then we have a successful dinner time without issues.

So I’ve actually been teaching and coaching on the, the dinner meal planning system that I came up with. And I really have been doing this. I need to go back to note because it has been years and I need to go back and look at and see really how many years, how long ago? But I created a two week reusable meal planning system.

So what that does is it makes it possible to. Have your dinners on a list and you know what you’re going to make for dinner for those two weeks. That doesn’t necessarily mean 14 nights because in all reality, you’re probably not cooking something for dinner 14 nights. Out of those two weeks, it might be nine, it might be 11.

And part of the program that when I teach about this, or in the meal planning mini course that I have available is to. Do an audit of your calendar to figure out what is realistic for you to actually think that you’re going to cook dinner, because it’s, again, most families, it’s not 14 nights. One night, could be leftovers, one might be going out, one might be something simple like what you said with the charcuterie, like something like that.

Or eating up the random thing is so that we, we take all of those things into consideration. But the best part about the reusable plan with the list of groceries [00:16:00] is that there’s also a reusable grocery list. So you have this plan and you, you have your list, you know what you’re making for two weeks, and you have the corresponding grocery list.

So you don’t have to think about it anymore. Once it’s done, you use it over and over and over and over again. And because I’ve been doing this same thing for so many years, I have a number of these plans with different meals. So all you have to do is create two of those and you would never repeat the same recipe and an entire month.

Hmm. I love that. So that’s like, that was one thing. It’s like, how, what can I do to simplify? I feel like every week when I’m sitting down to meal plan, I am wasting so much time. Oh yeah. And you really, because I’m trying these new recipes, then we would have food waste because it was ended up being things that we didn’t like.

We never got to cooking because it was too much effort. So by creating a meal planning system that works for your family, where it is a reusable plan that you can use over and over again. Mm-hmm. That literally has solved all the dinner problems. And I go to the grocery store now, sometimes it might be Costco, trader Joe’s and the grocery store.

Right. Because of the different things that we want. So it might be three trips in two weeks, but once I do that, I. I don’t have to go to the grocery store again. I don’t have to think about it. So I’ve saved a considerable amount of time and money and frustration since I have used this and implemented this for the dinner time years ago.

I. Oh my gosh. That’s, I mean, that’s huge. That’s so, so much of the stress and the thing I hear specifically about it’s not, it is, you know, our like cooking, finding the time, these different things, but it truly is the, the brain energy that it takes to planned. That’s, so that’s most of it, right? Where, where you really have that on lock because [00:18:00] that’s so, and I know, and, and also always, I love the simplicity of your plan because I think sometimes we do, we overthink it.

We creative, yes, but like. Also we’re busy moms who like with all the other things going on. So also knowing our season and is this the season to get creative in the kitchen and try all these different things? Or maybe it is, maybe it is, but if it’s not, maybe it’s the season to really, really scale back.

Simplify. Also, I love how you said just the real, being realistic about. The plan because the reality, just the reality of your life. going back to like looking at the plan, right? When we planning our week, knowing what our schedule is, and that will dictate then what is for dinner, depending on right, how long it takes.

If we’re, are we gonna be out at sports? Are we gonna be doing this or that? Were we gonna, am I going to be there to be able to prepare whatever I have planned because it has to match up otherwise, we are in no man’s land again. Right. And we we’re, that’s the frustration. and we end up defaulting.

And I think sometimes it’s, at least for me, when I the following through, I mean, that’s a whole other episode, a whole other conversation, but. Following through on the things we say we’re gonna do, following through on our plan. It’s so important for just our identity and feeling good about like reinforcing that this is who I am, I do what I’m saying I’m gonna do, I’m go.

Right. And a lot of times too, it’s. Important then to make that plan realistic. So that’s how we do that, right? Thinking through what is our schedule and also what am I actually gonna do? Like what’s my energy at this point on a Thursday after I’ve had a long week, right? I’m not gonna necessarily want, it depends, right?

Depending. So you just, the more we reflect it all, it all comes together. The more we reflect, get to know ourselves. [00:20:00] Then we can match all those things. But having that list, knowing what your family’s actually going to eat, knowing that planning in and eating out time, that’s a game changer for me too.

Like a night to eat out. So then there’s no guilt, there’s no like this, it’s intentional and then you actually enjoy it. Right? You’re not. Feeling guilty the entire time your family’s eating out. ’cause like right, it’s not that last week default, you scramble where you had to go because there wasn’t another option.

It’s so different. It’s such a different, a whole different vibe. and you really, you, you have to look at your schedule to say, what can I do? What, what can we accomplish? And then you create the meal plan from there. But creating that reusable meal plan is really the key. And you get so good at knowing what.

It takes to make those recipes because you do make them. If you, if you create a two week meal plan and you do the meal planning system that I have come up with, and if you want more information in the Intentional Edit podcast, episode 87 and 88 has a ton of like details of how this all works, then what happens is you will.

Use that two week meal plan and then two weeks later you repeat it so you, so you do this on repeat and then most people end up creating a second one, so they do every other two weeks. If you only have one, you’re still only repeating a meal twice in a month. So it’s not something your family’s getting sick of.

Yeah, and these meals can be as simple or as complicated as you want them to be. It might be, Pasta noodles, jarred sauce, and frozen meatballs. And that could be one of your dinners. Mm-hmm. But you have everything you need to make that. Or it might be something that is more complicated, or there’s two parts to it.

It could be putting. A meat or a protein in the oven, like a sheet pan meal. So you’re getting the, that and your vegetables, and then maybe there’s a salad on the side. So you’re just, you’re being as specific as you need to [00:22:00] be for you and your family to simplify the dinner hour, because that time of day seems to be the busiest when you have kids and you’re going in many different directions.

Yeah. Oh yeah. For sure. the reoccurring concept that keeps playing out in all of these episodes for the Back to School episodes is plan ahead, prepare, come up with the routines that serve you, that make life easier, that make your home function so that you can really enjoy more. Time with your family and free up as much time as possible so you can be efficient with these routines because you’re alleviating the stress of the daily tasks and their responsibilities.

And when I think about what we’re sharing in all these episodes, I keep coming back to that and it’s kind of that concept over and over again. Absolutely. Yeah. And I was just thinking. Again, with all that we’ve shared, I mean, it’s been so, so fun. Lauren, I love talking with you and like jamming on all these things, but I’m thinking now that we’re at the end and just looking forward as we’re talking about planning, but carving out, look at your schedule literally as like your action step.

Look at your calendar and see when you can carve out a block of time. And again, it could literally be 15 minute chunks. That’s the beauty of. We need, we do need to rethink that. As far as, I’m gonna put this on the schedule. I’m gonna, you know, block this time out. It does not have to be a two hour block.

It can be if you want, but it can be these little baby chunks that add up, carve out that time to think these things through, to sit down brain with your, whatever it is, with your Trello, with your planner, with your computer, your journal, whatever it is, and just clear your mind. Light a candle, have a glass of wine, a cup of coffee, whatever it is.

Just make it an enjoyable process to process what we’re saying, you know, process to [00:24:00] think through what we’ve shared and what, and brainstorm what might work for you, because I would say that’s the next step, and then you can bring it to your family and have that communication and, and be setting those things up.

Right. And also that reminder that it’s not gonna happen overnight, that it’s absolutely a process overall. Right. So just taking that next step. For sure, and we, I mean, we have shared so many different things, all going back to the routines, but different topics that we focused on, and you will not be successful if you try to implement all these changes at one time.

What is the biggest struggle? What’s your biggest pain point? Yeah. Start with that one and create a routine that solves that problem and then move on from there. And after a few weeks of tackling that, then I would recommend then moving on to that next one. What else is causing you overwhelm?

What else is really burdening you throughout the day and causing frustration for you or your kids? And what is the solution for that? And how do you incorporate that into a routine that solves that problem? So don’t try to tackle these things all at once. Move through these one at a time. Yes. No, that’s such a good way to approach it.

What is really the most pressing for you right now? What really, and I think you’re gonna have that intuition that hit right, whatever. If we talked about something specific, you’ll probably know what that thing is for you. So Lauren, this has been awesome. I feel, again, I feel like we could keep talking, but I feel like we also gave, we put a lot out there, so for sure.

I know we could keep talking and go on and on, but tell us as we wrap this up just one more time. Where can people go to check out your new planner? Yes, thank you. Uh, you can go to my website www.yoursimplybiglife.com/planner, and so everything will be there. And yeah, I’m super excited to get it into the hands of all the busy moms out there.

That’s right. I know it’s going to be super helpful. Well, thank you [00:26:00] for joining me for all of these episodes and. For the listeners, make sure that you’re listening to the episodes from this week, both on the Intentional Edit Podcast and the Peace in Productivity podcast, and I will be back and next week with regular episodes starting on Tuesday.

Yay. Thanks, Lauren.