ABraidedBlonde
How to Plan Out Your Week to Save Time & Money
February 26, 2024
I am a firm believer in planning ahead. When your week is planned out, you are more confident in yourself, where you’re spending time, and how you’re saving money. In today’s episode, I’m sharing some of the tips that I’ve implemented in our lives to plan well.
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Tips to Plan Out Your Week to Save Time & Money
Let’s walk through a few of my favorite tips to planning out your week to save time and money.
1. Set Clear Boundaries on Your Self Care Time, Work Time, and Family Time
For a long time I struggled with setting boundaries. All of my responsibilities blended into each other. I would be on my phone working during family time, I never made time for self care, and so many other issues with boundaries kept popping up.
If you’re trying to get the most out of your time, scheduling specific times for tasks is so valuable. I schedule one hour in the morning to get everyone ready, make lunches and beds, and do all the mom things. We also schedule our dinner and nighttime routine from 5-8PM with an 8PM bedtime. Anything that needs you somewhere, like school pickup, sports, or activities needs to be documented in that schedule.
When setting specific work times, I work from 9-12 and then 3-5. It wasn’t always this way—I was always working and on my phone so something had to change. By implementing work hours, it allows for you to be present when you’re in family time.
The next thing to consider is your self care. If you’re not doing something for you that lights you up, make time to explore what you could do. For years, I didn’t have a hobby, so I started exploring hobbies like coloring, painting, hosting girl’s nights, book clubs, working out, etc. Another way to focus on your self care is to establish a nighttime routine that sets you up for success the next day. On a weekly basis, I’m also going to therapy on Thursdays, then get Thai food. It’s one of my favorite times for myself.
2. Automate Your Business Tasks
If you’re a business owner, you know just how easy it can be to get sucked into doing the same task over and over, but having to think about what needs to get done each time. I sat down and set recurring tasks on my calendar for those weekly things that need to happen.
I’ve also started batching specific tasks. For shooting podcast episodes or even social content, I want my hair and makeup done, so I shoot as much as I can during those days.
Other weekly tasks include answering emails at the same time each day and running my weekly errands.
3. Get a Planner
You need a planner of some kind, whether it’s paper or digital. I loved my paper planner, but ultimately had to move to digital so that my team and my family had access to it. When you have a planner that documents what you’re doing and where you’ll be, life is so much more organized.
4. Plan & Document Your Meals
Another tip to staying organized is planning your meals. I have a dry erase board for meal plans where I write every meal of the week. This helps with grocery shopping, planning for the day, and using the right groceries.
5. Utilize Technology
Technology and tools are great resources to use for planning and home tasks. Some of my favorite tools include:
My encouragement to you is to find what works for you. Batching tasks reduces context switching, which occurs when you switch between different tasks or activities, which can lead to a loss of productivity and focus. I love batching and time blocking, but it doesn’t work for everything. Adjust on your own preferences and be flexible.
Key Moments:
:48 – Set Clear Boundaries
10:05 – Automating Business Tasks
13:20 – Get a Planner
15:04 – Meal Planning
20:40 – Tools & Technology
Mentioned in this Episode
Review the Transcript:
Hi everyone. And welcome back to the fourth episode of A Confident Blonde Podcast. I am so happy you’re here. I’m the host, Kellyann Schwartz. And today we’re going to dive into how to plan out your week. So you save time and money because let’s face it. We all need a little extra time and we all need some money.
So planning really helps you become your most confident self. And when your week is planned, you wake up Monday morning just feeling so confident. I have actually implemented Some of these tips in 2024, and let me tell you, they have already just changed the game. They’re so helpful. They’re just going to really help you become your most confident self.
So my husband works a full time corporate job. I have a six year old little girl and a nine year old boy. And we’re also very involved with school and sports. All the things I’m running my own online business and producing a ton of content on the world. So yeah, like we got to stay on top of our week or our week just literally runs all over us.
So today I’m going to help you with that and just how to get a simple routine. You can implement these tips on Sunday, but I do realize that some people take Sunday off as their rest day, especially for Sabbath or things like that. We typically take Saturday off for rest. That’s usually our rest day.
So you could totally do these tips on Monday if you wanted to, like first thing Monday morning. So I just wanted to let you know it’s a little flexible. So, tip number one, you want to set clear boundaries on your self care time, your work time, and your family time. When I first started doing, um, content creation full time, this was, I was just like setting like three tasks for the day that needed to get done, but I was like, I felt like I was just always on my phone.
There just were no really clear boundaries of when I’m a mom. When I’m taking care of myself, I was just, I honestly, I just felt like I was on my phone all the time. And I probably was. So if you go to a nine to five job, then your boundaries are a little bit more set with this, I think you would probably need to work on your self care time and your family time and setting boundaries with that.
So, this tip is definitely more for the stay at home mom that runs her own business or any woman that works from home that’s just trying to get the most out of their time. You first want to allocate specific times for family activities, meals, and bonding. You want to place that in your Google Calendar.
So, I schedule one hour in the morning to help get the kids ready for school, pack lunches, make beds, and just tidy up the house. You know, fix Annie’s hair, make sure Grayson is looking presentable cause he’s a nine year old boy. So he just wants to wear hoodies every day to school, which is fine, but sometimes he’ll wear the same.
I’m like, we got to change hoodies. Okay. Like we can’t wear the same every day. So yeah, basically doing all the mom things in the morning. My husband does take the kids to school because he’s leaving, he’s physically leaving the house to go to work. So he drops them off for me. So that might include, you know, Taking the kids to school or to mother’s day out or whatever that looks like.
But then from 5 PM to 8 PM, we have dinner, we clean up, do the dishes. We do baths. I try to read a book. My kids don’t have homework at this school. But if you had homework, that’s when you would do that. And then I try to get them in bed at eight. Sometimes it’s 8 30. Also, if you have like soccer activities, that would be implemented here in this time.
And I know that can make things a little wonky. But so I plug in all the sports and activities in my Google calendar. I also put in there what time I need to pick them up from school. I’ll just put like two o’clock pickup kit from two to three pickup kits. I know this sounds like crazy and people have been like.
Okay, but like, did you forget to pick your kids up? No, it’s just so that I don’t schedule something for work on top of that time. I really want to be intentional with that time. I want to pick them up from school. I want to talk to them about their day, but I want to be on the phone with a client or working from.
Two to three, which is what I used to do. So this is something I implemented for the year. Like I am not answering a call between two and three. Like that is when I pick up the kids, then I bring them back and I try to plug in some activities. Sometimes we, when it’s nice outside, we play outside and then I’ll finish up some work on my laptop, while they get some alone, independent time.
Honestly, they just, I’ve just noticed they just need to decompress from school. So they like. Either doing arts and crafts or my little boy does get, I mean, they do get device time around that time. I’m not going to deny and say, I don’t give my kids device time. They totally get device time. We just try to set boundaries with that.
Obviously. So, yeah, I don’t try to schedule anything in between. 2 and 5, because usually between 3 and 5, I’m trying to like, really finish up my day, so I don’t schedule meetings or anything like that. That’s just, um, how I plan out and block out time for family time. You definitely need to set specific work times.
So something I really wanted to make intentional for 2024 was treat this like a job. It is a job, but I felt like posting on. Social media, it felt like there was just no clear boundary. It felt like I was always working when we go on vacations. I’m shooting content, but it just feels like my whole day was just content.
So what I started doing was like, no, you work from 9 to 12, you break for lunch and then you work from 3 to 5 and that’s it for Monday through Friday. I know not. Everybody has that type of schedule. This is just my schedule with. How life is right now. So you do want to set your specific work times. If you work on your business, you want to try to like, this is my work block.
So that is super, super important to just set boundaries. With work, so like, obviously not working at night, not working late in the night, not working in the morning. First thing, all those things, which leads into the next thing you want to make sure you’re scheduling time for yourself to relax or exercise or pursue hobbies.
I talked about this on an earlier episode, but I’ve lived several years without a hobby and, you know, it’s so funny. Men have no issue finding their hobbies. We laugh it’s an inside joke over on a braided blonde Instagram that my husband loves golf But also like I’m just so proud that he had a hot he he can’t play golf right now Little side note.
He my husband has to have knee surgery So unfortunately, he’s not getting to do the one thing that he loves The most hobby wise, but men have no issues at all finding a hobby, like hunting, fishing, golfing, they just really live it up. And I am like, it’s about time us women find us a hobby. Like that was ridiculous.
Like we can have hobbies too. So some examples I had to even ask women, like, what do you do for fun? Like, what’s a fun hobby? Cause. I honestly did not know in my first therapy session. She was like, what do you do for fun? I was like, I don’t know and she was like There is a little girl inside of you that wants to play and have fun like let her do that so I started coloring painting I like hosting like girls nights.
I had a book club over the summer. That was very refreshing And fun, but I couldn’t keep up with it. I couldn’t keep it up when school started back. It was just You know, there’s so many things, some women play tennis, some women read books for fun. I’ve always read books for business, trying to read books for fun.
But yeah, you want to make sure you’re scheduling time. So you want, I know everybody’s schedules different. You want at least like 30 minutes in the morning and then 30 minutes at night. For tip for you to have alone time for yourself. So I’ve been getting up at five, doing my workout and then sitting and reading a little bit in the morning and just giving myself time for that.
And then also after the kids go to bed, giving myself like an hour to myself, sometimes me and my husband will. Sit and eat snacks and watch TV. So I get to hang out with him, but it’s really important to do that. And your nighttime routine determines the productivity for your next day. So if you want your next day to be just bomb and amazing and productive and happy and all those fun things, it starts with your nighttime.
What are you doing at night? Are you shutting your phone off? Are you getting off social media? Are you, you know, reading, relaxing, drinking tea, journaling, and all those things. So definitely try to schedule some time for yourself. Also weekly. So I have therapy Thursday. So as a weekly task of self care every Thursday, I go to therapy.
I try to block off just a little bit of time on Thursday that I’m not working and I’m just giving myself some time. I also go eat Thai food right after. Therapy, and it is so good. Chicken Pad Thai, Therapy Thursday, Chicken Pad Thai, baby. It’s, it’s a vibe. It’s so good. I love it. I’m just really, it’s, I’m just taking care of myself.
That’s what’s happening. Also, like, you know, schedule time, either, like, put your tan on, get your nails done. That’ll help you feel confident. Exercising, all those things are going to help you feel confident. So make sure you’re scheduling time for that. Also, this year, the biggest game changer for me was automating business tasks.
So I was in a like really bad creature of habit. I would. Pull out my planner and then schedule my tasks for the day, three things I need to get done or whatever and I’m like, okay, but this isn’t, things just felt overwhelming, especially like last quarter when holidays hit. Things felt overwhelming. I wasn’t enjoying the holidays because everything was, all the boundary lines were so blurred.
I feel like I was working 24 7. Just wasn’t good. That’s why in January I was like, I’ve got to figure out a system. So what I did is I have reoccurring tasks in my Google calendar for things that have to get done in the business on a weekly basis. So I sat down and wrote down, okay, these are tasks that I have to do every week for the business and every week for work, I have to do these things.
And then I block them into my calendar. So for example, like when I, shoot a podcast, I’m shooting. Two episodes at a time. So I’ll batch that task and put it in in my calendar as a reoccurring task Shooting content for me is a weekly task and it’s always on Tuesday It used to be on Monday, but I was like, I don’t want to just like go right into shooting content on Monday I want an admin day.
I love admin days because I get to wear Leggings and a fluffy sweater. And so when I’m shooting content, I’m changing outfits. My lashes are usually on my makeup’s done. My hair’s clean. Like it’s a process, you know, cause I want to, you know, you want to look good for the content. And I want to feel confident in the content.
So I schedule all. My, like, I batch all my content on Tuesday, I answer my emails the same time every day, and that really helps for all the emails to come in. I answer them all at once and reply to them accordingly. Um, and then that, also, a lot of my emails are action items. Either I’m like reviewing contracts or getting back with brands or negotiating or things like that.
So I answer my emails the same time every day. It’s usually at one o’clock and that’s because all the emails can flood in and then I can get back to them. That’s a weekly task that I put in my calendar. Another weekly task would be errands, so either going to buy product for me to review or returning things that didn’t work.
You know, I just feel like errands are just a weekly task.
Did all my errands in three hours and that way you’re not dividing up those errands and doing a little bit of errands every day. So it will help you save time for sure. It just helps you stay intentional with your day and every morning you wake up, you know exactly what needs to be done. I just love that.
So I don’t really have, I used to be this to do list girl and I had all these like lists everywhere. I’m trying to kind of get away from that and now it’s like, okay. This is the task that needs to get done to run your business today. So I would say write a list of your business or work tasks that have to get done every week and then set them up as reoccurring tasks in your calendar.
And you want to batch those tasks so you can use the most of your time. I know you guys are not new to this, but you definitely need a planner. I mean, I’m going to, it’s funny. We should like make a fun challenge out of this. How many times does Kelly say, go get a planner? So funny.
I just love planners. Okay. Like, I remember one day we’re sitting at this family gathering and someone was like, do you have a planner? And my cousin, he’s so funny. He’s like younger guy. He’s actually Chris’s cousin. Well, he’s my cousin now we’re married, but he’s hilarious. He’s like, she has like four planners.
What are you talking about? Just cracked me up. So at first I use some people have to use paper planers, so I would use an Erin Condren planner. I think it’s a great place to start now. Everything’s digital. So everything is in my Google Calendar and then It’s in my, workflows for my business, which I’ll go over in just a second.
But I love it. Cause my husband can see what needs to get done and my team is also attached to it. So as my team starts to grow and they can’t see your paper planner, I remember Chris would be like, what’s going on today? And it was just always like every day, Chris would check in. What’s the, what’s the plan for the day?
What are we doing today? I’m like. Oh yeah, it’s in my paper planner. And I also remember when I was out and about, I’d make an appointment or something, somebody would be like, can we get coffee on Thursday? And I’m like, looking at my paper planner, I’m like, Oh, my paper planner’s not with me. I can’t make this decision right now.
So now I can just pull it up in my phone. Once I switched to Google calendar, I feel like life got a lot more clear, a lot more organized, a lot better. But if you need to start with paper, start with paper, just. Get the planner. But one other thing that I do that’s, that is so helpful and that will help you for sure is I have like a little weekly meal plan dry erase board.
It just has like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday on there. And so I’ll write in the meals for dinner for the week. And then I’ll place it right next to the fridge. It’s hanging right next to the fridge. I love this for a couple reasons. One, when I’m getting ready to cook, I just take a quick look at it and see what’s on the menu for the day.
Also, if like Monday’s tacos and Tuesday’s spaghetti and you kind of feel more like a taco, you can switch it out. You know, you don’t have to like stick to it to a T, but I just know like this is the plan and this is what we have in the fridge. What, where I’ve really seen the best thing that it’s helped with Typically, I’m always there at dinner.
With my family, but sometimes I might have something for work or like I got invited to a girl’s night For a girl. We’re celebrating her birthday. And so Chris is able to look at that and he’s a little cook dinner So this will be so helpful for your family Because he can look at it and be like, okay, I can do tacos He can’t always cook everything on there But he can do like the basic things like spaghetti tacos like breakfast for dinner those kinds of things So it has really helped us.
Also, it will save you money as far as wasting food. Like I have the set amount of groceries that are in there. And so I’m not. Sometimes I’m still, like, having to get rid of things we’re not using, and life gets crazy, so sometimes I’m like, let’s just get Chick fil A, like, I can’t mentally get there for dinner yet and cook dinner, and that just happens.
But we try our best to stick with the meal plan, because it saves us time, and it saves us money, for sure. So, the biggest tip is that you want to get really good at batching tasks, and we’ve just kind of been Talking about that a little bit, but what is batching tasks? So batching tasks refers to the practice of grouping similar or related activities together in completing them during dedicated time blocks.
So everything I’m going over today is like, I’m just setting time blocks. Like I have a morning routine time block. I have a work time block. I have, I have an afternoon time block and then I have a nighttime time block. So, you know, the afternoon time blocks, like with the kids, morning time blocks.
Me getting self care and getting the kids ready, tidying up, all those things. So you definitely want to set blocks and batch when you can. The best example for batching tasks that I can give you is remember in school when you would draw, like, several hearts on a piece of paper? And then you would cut all the hearts out at once?
And then you would glue all the hearts to the paper? Cause you knew if you drew one heart, you cut out one heart. And then glue that one heart on the piece of paper. It would take you so much longer than if you just draw them all out and put them all together. So, if you want to be a little more efficient with your time at work and at home, try batching tasks.
But also be flexible on this. Okay, so one thing I’m learning is like, I can batch and do all the laundry on Sunday. But after like four or five loads of laundry, I am like, I don’t want to see another t shirt. I am going to lose it. And honestly, I like folding laundry. I don’t like putting the laundry up, but I like folding it.
So now what I’m like trying to figure out is like, okay. I don’t want to hate this task and I don’t want to procrastinate on it. So just adjust, you know, you can’t batch every single thing. We do batch, for example, I make Annie’s lunch for school. My little girl, I will, make all her lunches for the week on Sunday.
And that’s just so I can throw it in the lunchbox and it’s so helpful for me. So I do batch that task. And I always think about when I, when it, before I do something, or if I’m wanting to like procrastinate on something, I’m like, well, my future self. Thank me for this. Like if I go ahead and make her lunches, like when my future self love me for this or hate me for this, you know what I mean?
But adjust accordingly, be flexible. The biggest thing is batching tasks reduces context switching. So context switching occurs when you switch between different tasks or activities, which can lead to a loss of productivity and focus. I really struggle with ADHD. Like, really bad. My ADHD journey is I mean, that could be just a whole podcast episode in itself, but, I was on a medication for years and now I’m not on medication for ADHD and I’ve worked with so many health professionals for my personal journey, just to take care of it naturally.
So with that being said, when I get in the flow and I start writing episodes for the podcast, for example, I just want to keep writing and keep batching those episodes. I don’t want to lose my momentum. It takes your brain a minute to get going. So you want to keep it in that flow state for like three hours.
That’s when you’re going to be your most productive self. We all have the same amount of hours in the day to, you know, so it really, it really matters how you spend your time. So think of what weekly tasks you have, try to batch them. I gave you guys some great examples on that. I feel like I’ve been giving you a ton, but definitely for business, if you want to start, you know, posting on Instagram Pinterest or anything like that, try to shoot all your content at once.
That’s going to be the biggest tip I’ll ever give you. So our last tip of the day to help you with planning out your week is to utilize technology to help you with this. It was so funny. We were sitting last night at our Bible study group and, one of the ladies in there was like, wow, like all the apps you use and like how you take your notes, even for church, it’s like kind of crazy.
And so I’m a big tool person. I love technology and I love tools. And so here are some tools that I just love that I think you will love. For home tasks, I use. The Kroger app, so the Kroger app has a boost membership and I know I think I’m pretty sure don’t quote me, but I think it’s 100 to get started.
And I know another membership, but you get 4 times fuel points. I think me and Chris saved around a dollar 56 on gas. We were like, whoa, but what I love about it is that you can order the groceries and then have them delivered. So you’re going to save time going to the grocery store. I also love that it like saves what groceries you had last time.
So you can just click and add them back to cart. So for home tasks, the Kroger app, obviously to order groceries in that boost membership, we’ve been loving that. If you’re a Kroger shopper for business tasks, I love the focus app. This is so funny because. It sounds a little like kiddish, but it’s so helpful.
So basically this app, you have a forest and you plant a tree. So when you, you pick a tree that you want, and then when you plant it, it starts a timer and for the tree to be completely planted in your forest, you can’t get off the app and it helps with focusing. And so I went to my husband, I was like, I know we both.
Have a hard time focusing, staying focused. I was like, you should download this app and we’ll like compete to see how many trees we can grow in our forest. He looked at me like.
But then, like, it really does I try to beat the timer. I set it in, like, 25 minute timers. And so, like, let’s say it’s full laundry. I’ll set the timer. And once I get going, I’m like, okay, I’m like, I get going. I want to beat the timer and it helps me stay focused. But it’s also really cool to see how many trees you planted.
So, me and Chris, my husband have a. Competition on who can plant the most trees. It’s so funny. He’s like, how many trees do you get today? And it’s been helping us. So download the forest app. I’m pretty sure that it’s free. Don’t quote me on that, but I like to use free apps when I can. So for self care, I love using this app called good notes.
And that’s where I download my digital planner and then my journals. So I, before I had like a journal for. Church to take church notes. And then I had a journal for just journaling. And if you’re definitely just trying to stay from technology, I would say stick to the paper journals that you have. But what I have is good notes and it holds all my journals.
And then I have an iPad with an Apple pen. And it’s nice because I can like for church, for example, instead of carrying like my Bible and all my journals and all my highlighters and all my pens, Chris was like. I had like this whole situation. Now I just have my iPad and then I can pull up the Bible app and I can go to things quickly in scripture and then I can also take notes and highlight.
I have highlights and stickers and all these things in there. It’s funny. And I kind of journal while I’m listening to the lesson. So I use that. Also, I don’t have Instagram. Any social media apps are not downloaded on my iPad to help keep that boundary. So also color on there. You know, you can also read books, but I recently got a Kindle for books.
So I like, and I like it cause you can get as many books as you want. So I love using apps for that. So yeah, I hope that all of these tips helped you today. So what I want you to work on until we come back for the next episode is just setting clear boundaries, getting. You know, Fonda times either Friday or Saturday, Sunday or Monday, but.
Try to fit, I would like, I would like for you to at least trust planning out your week on like, Friday, Saturday, plan out the next week. Try to set just those clear boundaries. Boundaries protect what’s in, it doesn’t keep people out. Okay, so we want time for work. We want to be productive. We want to be there for a family, but we also have to take care of ourselves.
And that’s the only way we’re going to be the happiest and the most competent versions of ourself. I don’t think at this point in life that many of you are really craving, like, astronomical amounts of money. I think you’re craving. Peace and happiness and those things and I, I don’t know how else you can find it without boundaries is what I’m learning.
So set some boundaries. Don’t spend a ton of money on planners. Don’t get the most expensive planner. There’s one on Walmart that’s like 10 and it is amazing. I mean, it’s perfect. Find one on Amazon if you need to to help get you going or download the Google Calendar app and start using that and then get really good at batching your tasks.
That’s going to help keep your focus and also just using technology. Anytime you can like download the forest app. I want to hear how many trees you guys get. So let me know, send me a DM and say, Hey, I downloaded the forest app. Let’s challenge each other on how many trees we can get. I just unlocked a pink.
You guys know I love pink. I just unlocked a pink shrub, a pink bush with these pink hydrangea flowers on it. I was like, Chris, look, I have a pink bush now. He was like, okay, go ahead. It works, you know, it works so well for me and I hope it works for you. I love getting to hang out with you, here on the podcast.
We have an episode drop every other week and they’re around 30 minutes. So make sure you check out some of my old episodes and if no one’s told you today, I think you are so very special. I am so proud of how far you’ve come and you truly make the world a better place. Until next time on a confident blonde podcast.
