Have you ever had a week where your schedule is so many activities that you are overwhelmed simply looking at your calendar?

I have one this week!  The kids have school activities everyday, Jason has a doctor’s appointment and we’re getting our puppy!

These weeks happen a lot in our big family. Here are 9 tips to thrive (not just survive) the crazy busy weeks!

1. Keep meals simple.  When you are crazy busy the last thing you need to be doing is making huge meals.  One way to prepare for these kind of weeks is to make a double batch of your favorite meals.  Eat one and freeze the other for these kind of weeks.  Casseroles and soups are great!  If you don’t have anything in the freezer, you have a few choices.  Frozen pizzas, eating out, or going to your grocery store buffet (we have Hy-Vee) and purchasing some already prepared fruit and veggies, a delicatessen chicken, and a few sides for a meal.  I like doing the grocery store buffet because it is usually cheaper for our family than going out, healthier, and in 10 minutes we have a meal!  (My grandma taught me this trick as a widow she does this frequently and makes quick soups or appetizers for one person.  She loves it!)
2. Organize your clothes and accessories on Sunday!  This has been a game changer for me with my younger kids for having a smooth week.  On Sunday, lay out your clothes for the entire week.   (My kids don’t lay them all out but we make sure they have chosen 5 clean school outfits and made notes of any other items they need for the week.  This includes uniforms, gym clothes, shoes, sports equipment or anything else you need.
3. Keep your calendar up to date.  It’s important to keep all of those field trips and activities organized.  When the kids bring a note home, I make sure to add it to the calendar right away.  It saves time looking for the notes later on and if you are asked about a specific time, you will know if you have anything planned.
4. Color code your calendar or planner.  With 5 kids, this has saved me a lot of time not having to write in the kids’ name or initial next to the activity each time.  In our house Maddie’s purple, Blake’s green, David’s blue, Nora’s pink, and Ari is orange in my calendar.  Jason and my appointments are in black, anything that involves all the kids is red and anything that relates to both twins is a light blue.  This took a little bit of practice getting used to but it truly has saved so much time.  You could always make a key in the front of your planner until you have the color coding down!
5. Don’t get caught up in the small stuff!  When it’s a busy week, things happen.  The baby has a blow out before you are leaving for work, your car has a flat tire, a kid comes down with a cold.  These things happen.  My new phrase has been “if this is the worst thing that happens to us today, life is still pretty good”.  Yes it may cause a little stress but put it in perspective.  People are starving to death, people are being murdered because of their religious beliefs, many are battling cancer, dealing with the tragedy of a child’s death…a flat tire or another annoyance is not the end of the world.  I had to tell Nora last week to “pull up her big girl panties and deal with it” after she was having a meltdown over something small (and yes it was small because I can’t even remember what it was about)!A lot of people would trade their big problems for those small annoyances and be so grateful for them…it’s all about perspective!
6. Ask for help.  I will admit I’m not very good at this.  It’s very humbling to me.  However, you can really unload your workload when you ask for help.  Maybe the kids can unload the dishwasher, your spouse do a load of laundry, your mom pick up one of the kids from practice or telling someone that you can’t because you are just too busy.  Don’t feel guilty about it.  We all need help from time to time.
7. Set alarms.  I use my alarms on my phone a lot.  Now that I have to pick up from preschool every day I have one set at 11:00 A.M. that reminds me I have 30 minutes to get there before I’m late.  No, it’s not rocket science but it’s a small thing that helps remind me in the busiest time of day that I need to pick up my daughter!  (I know it may be hard to believe to some of you that I need this alarm but when I get focused in on a project time gets away from me!)  The alarms have really helped me stay on track!
8. Stay in maintenance mode and be grateful!  There are 2 things I always try to keep up on in our house: dishes and laundry.  When these 2 start stacking up, I get stressed.  If all you get done at home one day is the dishes (and you had the kids load and unload the dishwasher) be grateful that you got that done!  We all can see the glass as half full or empty.
9. Pray. I should have listed this as #1 because God knows all of our needs!

How do you thrive (not just survive) the crazy busy weeks?

I hope you are all having a fantastic week!

Welcome to Women With Intention Wednesdays!

Welcome to a new week of Women With Intention!

Thank you all for linking up!  There will be no feature this week as the most popular post didn’t follow the link-up rules.

 

Welcome to Women With Intention Wednesdays!

Here is what you will find at Women With Intention Wednesdays:

• This is a link up party where you come to encourage one another, have fun, and share your best posts to help women live their best life!
• In other words, any post that you have written about Christian living, homemaking, relationships, healthy living, living a frugal life or that helps another woman can be included in this link up! Please just them family friendly (I reserve the right to remove anything that I feel isn’t appropriate).
• This link up is beneficial for every woman! Whether you are a blogger or a reader, this is one you won’t want to miss! I’m very excited to offer this link up as a place to not only build new relationships between bloggers but also by providing an awesome resource of information for my readers!

Here are the rules of this link up:

1. You must link directly to your post (no homepages, please).
2. Please link up no more than 2 posts each week and please do not link up the same post week after week.

3. For every link you add, please visit the link before you and one other of your choice. If your links are consecutive visit the blogger before you and your choice for the 2nd link. It’s impossible to build relationships when no one communicates! Please don’t link and run!

4. By linking up you give me permission to share your posts and photos on this blog and social media. Each week I will choose a featured blogger and possibly another post such as the most popular post. I will only feature you and the most popular posts if you have followed the rules (otherwise I’ll move on to the next most popular post). All features will be linked back to the original source.
5. You also give me permission to email you a quick reminder that the party is live. You may opt out anytime. I don’t spam my readers with emails.
6. Answer the community building question below so we all get to know each other! That’s the purpose of being here! 🙂

I’d love for you to add a button to help spread the word about Women With Intention Wednesdays (thank you)!

 

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Community Building Question: What is the single biggest home management challenge you have?

Maintaining a clean home is mine!

Have you enjoyed what you read here today? Do you have friends or other women you know that could benefit from this resource? If so, please do me a favor! I have included the links below to share with other intentional women! They’ll be glad you did!