Once upon a time, I had an elaborate morning schedule/routine all written out which included my daily housework items. It made me not want to get out of bed… and I’m a morning person.
Simplicity works best for me. I quit making lists and I just started doing what needs to be done every day.

daily routine

My “daily routine” usually means I sweep, straighten, and do a load of laundry every day. And take out any stinky diapers that have accumulated in the trash can. I cook and clean up the kitchen as needed (oddly, “as needed” falls into a three-times-a-day pattern almost every day, something about meals I guess). I don’t write this stuff down anymore. I don’t need to, because what I’m doing is intuitive, simple, simply what needs to be done. (I do write down my weekly routine because otherwise I would never wash the windows or dust the furniture.)

Other than that, if something I see is dirty, I either clean it right away or ignore it. It usually takes less time to just tackle the job than it does to get my calendar and write it down on a future to-do list. If I don’t have time (or the will or the inclination) then, I ignore it until I notice it again and do have time.

weekly routine

This is the current weekly housekeeping groove I’m rocking. It’s working for me. It’s better than cleaning the whole house every day or not cleaning at all. What is that thing people are always talking about? Balance? Yeah. That might be worth looking into…

• Monday: sweep and mop floors, empty trash, dust (if I get to it).
• Tuesday: clean bathrooms, vacuum rugs.
• Wednesday: wash windows (only the ones that look really dirty), clean up porch and walkways.
• Thursday: try to catch up on laundry.
• Friday: re-clean what needs it.
• Saturday: make Sunday’s lunch.
• Sunday: plan for the upcoming week.

a few things I’ve learned

Work on changing and improving one habit, one area at a time, establishing one habit at a time, making big progress toward one goal at a time. Commit to success at that one thing and just keep other areas on a routine, maintaining. Focus your energies, your attention – even if just for one week at a time.
The thing about clutter. My goal is an uncluttered, open, orderly, easy-to-maintain home. Stuff takes up so much time and work. If you’re strapped for cash, take the opportunity and sell some stuff. Get more space and more cash. Get a little ruthless and get rid of any and all that you do not “know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.”
And the useful thing: let’s just say that if it’s not actively useful – at least once a week, or on a regular basis – then it isn’t worth keeping. It isn’t useful if it isn’t being used. Don’t let the potential keep you locked in a clutter paralysis.

about cleaning supplies

I’ve already admitted I’m lazy, but you just can’t leave well enough alone, can you? Fine. I’ll admit it, then. I’m lazy and I’m cheap. The last thing I want to spend money on is……… housecleaning supplies! Come on, people! They’re overpriced and they smell funny and they all essentially do the same thing and most of them are toxic and you still want me to buy 17 different kinds just to clean my bathroom?

I think not, my friends. I think not.

In my brilliance, I decided to make my own. How hard can it be? Well, kind of involved as it turns out. Do you remember that whole laziness factor? Yeah. It comes into play again here. Making an array of nicely bottled and labeled housecleaning supplies really isn’t the way I want to spend my weekend, as it turns out. I could totally cheap out and just buy the dollar store all-purpose cleaner and use it on everything, but the toxicity factor bothers me just enough.

Here’s what I did instead. I bought an empty spray bottle ($1). Then I bought a liter of Dr. Bronnor’s Peppermint Castile Soap ($14.99 at my Walgreens). I already had some baking soda.

I filled the spray bottle almost full with water, added a couple of tablespoons of baking soda, a few tablespoons of the peppermint soap, capped it, shook it, and voila: my cleaning arsenal. That $15 bottle of castile soap will create, I don’t know, like 50 spray bottles of my cleaning concoction. Peppermint is a natural antibacterial agent. Baking soda is good for something, I forget what. Plus when I clean the whole house smells like peppermint which makes it seem even cleaner than it is.

I use this on everything: bathrooms, floors, spills in the refrigerator, unidentifiable gooey spots on the wall, kitchen counters, mirrors, furniture. That and a bottle of Windex for the windows and I am set. Sometimes the lazy-cheap thing kind of turns out nice, after all.

Sometimes necessity isn’t the mother of invention. Sometimes laziness is…

Images

1. I just can’t wait to get home courtesy of Ale Bonvini on Flickr.

2. Look at the pretty sponges courtesy of Horia Varlan on Flickr.

• 38 pages
• 10 chapters (if you count the “Additional Resources”; 9 if you don’t.)
• Topics include scheduling, household management, finances, social life, and more.
• Creative Commons: reuse, redistribute, remix with attribution
• Brief table of contents:

1. The Day Simplicity Smacked Me in the Face
2. A Simple Version of Simple Living
3. 10 Ways to Start Simplifying
4. Finding Order with a Household Rhythm
5. Finding Peace with a Schedule
6. Finding Peace with Your Budget
7. Finding Sanity in Your Social Life
8. Finding Joy in Your Work
9. 30 Ways to Simplify Your Life Today
10. Additional Resources

The ebook will be free for the entire month of June. After that, it will be available for $5.95. Get it now (that’s just simple common sense).

Would you like to review this book or make it available on your website? Please feel free to do so: shoot me an email and let me know and I will add you to a related link list.

Having 3 kids under 3 forces you into being a simplicity guru. It’s not a matter of preference but survival. As I burp my one-month-old and browse for writing jobs with my free hand, I realize something that is, for me, profound: having too many goals is just as deadly as having no goals at all.

Goals should bring freedom.

In order to make progress, you must define and limit your goals. Your goals should free you to pursue what matters and to happily ignore what doesn’t. That will only happen as you consciously decide what matters right now and what can (or must) be ignored.  If you want to be successful in modern homemaking, mothering, working, entrepreneur-ing (how’s that for coining a word?), then you have to limit your efforts in order to succeed.

We have an unfinished basement, some major landscaping needs in the backyard, and about 4 rooms that really need to be repainted in our home. I would prefer to get all those projects completed, but neither my time nor my money allows it. My time is spent caring for our children and for myself, writing, and keeping the household afloat. My money may one day be in excess to simply hire someone to do the things I don’t have time for, but that day has not yet come. In the meantime, repainting my bedroom would be nice, but it’s not important. If I have a free afternoon one weekend, I might tackle it; but I’m not going to interrupt the important day-to-day stuff just to change wall colors.

Now. Fast forward ten years or so in my life and things might be different. Our kids will be older, in school, much more independent. I will have either reached some major milestones in my writing, enabling me to slow down, or put it aside, or switched to a different business focus. I might want to entertain more, have more overnight guests, spend more time with friends and family in our home. Painting, redecorating, landscaping, finishing house projects might become more important as other things become less important.

You can only pursue a few goals at a time.

Well, that’s not entirely true. You can pursue lots of goals at once, but you won’t make much progress on any of them. I am always seeking to become a better person and build a better life; however, I can’t conquer every area at once. If I set goals to run 3 miles a day, read a book a week, cook gourmet meals for dinner, and spend time playing with my kids, something must collapse. (It will probably be me.) Priorities. I simply cannot spend all the time required on all those personal goals and still have time to sleep at night. I must choose one.

Do you understand your work?

Work encompasses more than you think. It’s not just your 9-to-5 or your freelance career or your side business. Life is work; this is not a bad thing, and the sooner you realize how much work is involved in life, the sooner you can start building more efficiency and enjoyment into it. Sort your areas of work out, but don’t get complicated. 4 or 5 at the most. Here are mine:

1. Personal
2. Household
3. Business
4. Community

Those are mine, and those are their order of priority in my life. Yes, I put “me first.” More on that in another post.

Overlook these at your peril.

Treating one area of your work (a.k.a. your life) as unimportant leads to problems in all areas. You are only one person. You cannot ignore your personal needs and still function well on business matters. The creativity and intelligence you nurture by taking care of yourself are what make you able to be great at your business. This concept flows from all areas. There is no real division; we categorize only for the sake of identifying problems and solutions.

Separate the infinite from the finite.

A to-do list is infinite; your current goals should be finite, reachable, measurable. The ideas and visions you have for your life are infinite; your time is finite. Once you’ve sorted out your areas of work, set one specific, current goal for each. These are your working goals. You must choose to quit being manipulated by a never-ending list and start making real progress toward a few goals.

As you progress toward your working goals, you build habits. Once you reach your goals and set new ones, those habits you established can remain. Some, of course, may end with the accomplishment. But many will have become positive habits that can remain in your life, even if they are modified or downsized to accomodate your new working goals. Your decision to limit your working goals to only a few ends up having a positive, cumulative effect on the quality of your life. The more goals you reach, the more good habits you have established.

You will reach more goals by limiting your efforts and focusing your diligence.

]]> http://sisterwisdom.com/blog/2009/05/18/making-progress-with-specific-work-goals/feed/ 1 http://sisterwisdom.com/blog/2008/03/27/short-review-not-buying-it-by-judith-levine/ http://sisterwisdom.com/blog/2008/03/27/short-review-not-buying-it-by-judith-levine/#comments Thu, 27 Mar 2008 17:17:31 +0000 Annie http://sisterwisdom.com/blog/2008/03/27/short-review-not-buying-it-by-judith-levine/ .

The book: Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping by Judith Levine, published by Free Press; available as an Amazon Kindle Edition, if you’re so inclined.

The format: A month-by-month review of one couple’s year without purchasing anything more than necessities.
The review: A more accurate description might be a month-by-month foray into the life and mind of a writer totally taken in by anti-Bush, anti-capitalism, anti-republican, anti-war cultural popularisms.

Let’s not blame her. She is, after all, a writer living in New York City and New England. She has simply become what is accepted in her particular subculture. Honestly, when did you last hear of a pro-bush, New York City-based writer actually published?
I don’t critique her in order to defend Bush. Frankly, I’m not a great fan myself, but my aim here is not to dissect the politics of the thing but to review the part politics play in her book. I picked it up because I am interested in people trying to simplify, in a less consumer-oriented life, in the reality of trying to live a little differently than the culture around you.

Levine provides a statistically supported, well-researched critique of consumer culture and is fresh and honest about her place in it. Her personal struggles with buying and not buying, her changes in lifestyle, her experiences in the social sphere as a non-consumer: these are the essays that pique and tingle. She is honest about her less-than-ideal habits, her penchants for newness (to which we can all relate), her failures; she is humble and realistic about her success.

She loses me, however, when she attempts to define the failings of capitalism and the problems with rich (read: non-third-world) countries by applying cliches of the liberal leaning to problems of commerce, economics, and wealth distribution. Stereotypes just don’t do enough. The “bigger” issues, in this case, are not better for Levine.

Perhaps that’s because, on the political spectrum, I am far more Republican than I am Democrat. Maybe I can’t handle the criticism where it touches my party leanings.

Or maybe personal, real experience tells a story better than political musing. Where Levine remembers, and writes thus, the book is interesting no matter what your politics. When she doesn’t, however, which is a lot of the time, she inspires me to take the title advice in real application to the book itself.

More: Levine’s 2006 radio interview with Doug Henwood of Left Business Observor. (Downloadable or listen to streaming audio.)

Levine’s 2006 radio interview with Diane Rehm of the Diane Rehm show. (Listen to a segment or purchase the cd or transcript.)

An interview (text) about Levine’s 2002 book Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex from Salon.com. (There was a good deal of controversy about the book when it was published, which the introductory article summarizes.)

Levine’s blog, her other books, and an excerpt from Not Buying It.

To-go containers
Leftovers
Non-cook options
Heated options
Prepared fresh food

Using the Tools

To-Go Containers
For those who must take their lunches or prepare them for others who take them to work or school, your choice of to-go containers can make lunch simple or complicated. Disposable, restaurant-style boxes are a good option if you find that your Tupperware never makes it home. Yes, it is more waste and more recycling, but if your plastic containers disappear you have to replace them. Better to replace paper than plastic.

A good thermos is indispensable for colder weather. Sandwich bags, zipper-type bags, paper lunch bags, plastic wrap, foil: there are endless options. The best way is to determine what type of lunches you will be making regularly, then stock up on containers that work for you. If you, your spouse, and/or your child will bring home reusable containers, they are best. If not, get something inexpensive and make of recycled materials if possible, and keep a good supply on hand.

Leftovers
You can provide almost every lunch from left-over dinner meals, if you so choose. Make more than is needed for dinner for your family, and go ahead and portion it out into the appropriate lunch container before dinner. Don’t feel that you have to wait until everyone has eaten and scrape up what is left. If you know you have more than enough, remove the part that will be someone’s lunch. We tend to eat as much as we see available: more if there is more, less if there is less. Help fight obesity and remove the lunch portion before it disappears at dinner!

Non-Cook Options
Especially in warm weather, the less time you have to spend heating up the kitchen the better. Cheese and crackers , peanut butter sandwiches, deli meat tortilla wraps, tuna salad in pita bread, and other quick, easy lunches require no heating and minimal preparation. You do not have to have endless options here, either. Just a couple of non-cook lunch items combined with some fresh fruit will be plenty.

Heated Options
In cold weather, it is nice to have something warm and a bit more substantial for the midday meal. To avoid having to cook every day for lunch, think ahead and make a bigger batch that can serve you through the week. A big pot of soup, cooked on Monday, can provide lunches through Friday. Bake five large potatoes on Monday and eat one every day for lunch; you can use different toppings every day, if you want more variety. Or you could choose one day out of the week when you will cook lunch. Make quesadillas and eat them fresh, but be sure to make extra and reheat them for the next couple of days.
You can also use your slow cooker for lunch. Put in thinner cuts of meat, beans, and vegetables in the morning and let cook on high for a few hours until lunchtime. Add some rice if you want, or scoop out and serve on tortillas. This method also allows you to really be on top of things for supper; be sure you’ve put enough in the slow cooker for both meals, and then turn it on again in time to be hot for the dinner hour.

Prepared Fresh Food
A good variety of fresh fruit requires very little preparation and makes lunch healthier. Fresh vegetables, already washed and peeled or otherwise prepared, can be served on the side of a cup of soup or with tuna salad or any other quick lunch option. If you have these things all ready to put on the plate, you’ve saved yourself more time to sit and eat and get back to whatever you were doing. This is also helpful when you have young children who understand hunger only as a very immediate need. Give them some carrot sticks or a handful of grapes to munch on while you finish putting together sandwiches.

The best thing you can do for lunch is plan ahead, even if it is only at breakfast of the same day. If you do need to have lunches packed to take away, your mornings will be far less stressful if you complete this task the night before. While you’re packing the lunches of those leaving the house, go ahead and do a little preparation for those eating at home. Why prepare twice when you can have everything finished?

To-go breakfast edibles
Options: non-cook, quick-cook, make-ahead
A well-stocked freezer
A specific breakfast time

Using the Tools

To-Go Breakfast Edibles
Every now and then, or perhaps more often than that, you’re going to have a morning that just won’t come together. It’s best to be prepared and keep a supply of breakfast items that can be eaten en route. Granola bars, protein bars, bananas or apples, or any of the multitude of breakfast bars are all good options. Except for the fruit, all of those options are rather over-processed to be a healthy choice for every day. But when you’re in a pinch and you know it, it is better to eat something processed than nothing at all. Combine a banana or apple with a protein bar and you won’t be doubling over from hunger at mid-morning.

Options: Non-Cook, Quick-Cook, and Make-Ahead
Non-cook options include cereal and milk, yogurt and granola, fresh fruit of any kind, bagels, and smoothies.
Quick-cook options include oatmeal, cream of wheat type cereals, toast, and eggs.
Make-ahead options include breakfast casseroles and any baked goods you make yourself: muffins, scones, biscuits, etc.
The idea is not to have all of the options listed above and pick your way through them each morning. We’re going for simple. Knowing your morning schedule and approximately how much time you have both to prepare, eat, and clean up breakfast, you need to choose the options that best fit. If you’re looking at ten minutes, go for the non-cook options, preferably those with little or no cleaning needed, like fruit and bagels. Add a glass of milk to get some protein. If you have twenty to thirty minutes, you could opt for one of the quick-cook options. Twenty minutes is enough time to make toast, scramble an egg, eat, and put your dishes in the dishwasher. Thirty minutes is enough time to make oatmeal, cream of wheat, or an omelet, eat, and clean up.
The make-ahead options could work for shorter or longer time periods, if you have the time and desire to make breakfast the night before. You can put together a breakfast casserole while you’re cleaning up dinner (or during your extended weekly prep time) and keep it in the refrigerator. In the morning, simply pop it in the oven while you shower and dress, then take fifteen minutes to sit and eat. Or if you enjoy baking, make up a batch of muffins or scones. You can go ahead and cook them so they’re ready to grab on your way out the door, or you can get the batter from the refrigerator, cook them while you get ready, and enjoy them warm and fresh.
What you don’t want to do is take on more than your morning can accomodate. Don’t try to make an omelet if you have to leave in ten minutes. Save those labor-intensive, more elaborate breakfasts for the weekends. Waffles, pancakes, and the like are great as a Saturday morning brunch or a Sunday evening meal.

A Well-Stocked Freezer
Keeping your freezer supplied with breakfast goods that only have to be cooked or reheated can simplify not only your weekday mornings but also your weekends and the times you have overnight guests who might experience hunger pangs in the morning. If you enjoy baking and make muffins to enjoy for breakfast, make an extra batch for the freezer. All you have to do is reheat in the oven for fresh, warm muffins to serve your guests. Almost any baked goods will freeze and reheat well, and can provide something warm for breakfast on those weeks when you are too busy to bake.
If you really like the freezer idea, you can devote an afternoon or evening to stocking it up. Breakfast burritos freeze well, reheat in the microwave in just a couple of minutes, and provide carbohydrates and protein for your first meal. It is easy to prepare a large batch of them in a couple of hours: one afternoon of work and you can have a hot, filling breakfast for the next couple of weeks.
If you prepare waffles or pancakes on the weekend, you can freeze any leftovers. Put sheets of waxed paper or foil in between each one, then seal in a freezer bag. Pull out what you need for breakfast and broil in the oven or use the toaster.

A Specific Breakfast Time
Setting a specific time for breakfast every day is both healthy and smart. If you train yourself to eat in the morning, you will begin to have an appetite for breakfast, which will get your metabolism into gear and provide you with energy for the first part of the day. If you know when you need to be sitting down and eating in order to clean up and leave the house on time, you can set your alarm accordingly. You’ll also know when you are running late and you don’t have time, so you won’t attempt to make oatmeal and then realize halfway through that you only have ten minutes to shower, eat, and take out the trash.

We all know breakfast is an important meal, but many of us still fail to plan adequately. We either leave no time and end up gulping down coffee and a stale pastry or we have no options and can’t endure the thought of one more bowl of cereal. The ultimate simplicity is to eat the same breakfast every day, but few of us can handle that monotony. Just a few meal options provide the variety we need, and when those options are tailored to the reality of your schedule you can find yourself enjoying breakfast and getting to work on time.

A weekly meal plan
A well-stocked pantry
An uncomplicated kitchen
A weekly grocery trip
One extended prep time per week
Simple staples
Leftovers

Using the Tools

A Weekly Meal Plan
There is menu planning, and then there is life. The two don’t go together very well. You can plan all you want to make that beef stroganoff and rice pilaf and chocolate mousse on Tuesday evening, but when the washer breaks and floods the basement on Tuesday afternoon, your dearest plans are (literally) washed away. We don’t know exactly what a day will throw at us. After unexpected and stressful situations, there is nothing worse than realizing you have nothing to eat that will not demand an hour’s prepping and cooking time. Not good.

A weekly meal plan is sort of like a menu, but allows for ahead-of-time preparation and flexibility. Assuming you will eat out one night per week, you are left with six nights that demand some sort of meal for yourself and your family. A weekly meal plan could be as simple as this: 1) Pasta, 2) Soup, 3) Chicken, 4) Sandwiches, 5) Fish, 6) Slow Cooker. You can have the same kind of pasta, soup, chicken, etc. every week if you want to, or you can mix it up a little and do a different pasta sauce and a new kind of slow cooker dish. You have six options, however, and you shop for and prepare for the six options each week. Then, whatever the day throws at you, you have food that is planned and somewhat prepared and requires little more time or effort from you.

A Well-Stocked Pantry
If you have a weekly meal plan that you follow, then keeping your pantry stocked with food that you will actually use is much easier. If you eat fish every week, buy more when it goes on sale and keep it in the freezer. Same for other meats and canned or dry goods you use on a regular basis. The key is to be sure you always keep your pantry stocked with at least one of each of the items you use weekly. That way, if you are sick or have an emergency and can’t make it to the store when you planned, you can still have dinner. You must also exercise some self-discipline. A well-stocked pantry is not one that is packed full of random food items; say no to those great deals that you may never use, or buy only one and see how long it takes you to use it. It’s fine, of course, to add new favorites as your simple cooking repertoire expands; just don’t add too many new things at one time.

An Uncomplicated Kitchen
More is not always better. For the next few weeks, take an extra ten minutes while you’re cleaning up from dinner and start cleaning out your cabinets and drawers as well. Cramped, messy cabinet space makes it difficult to find the dish or utensil you need. It’s fine to have gadgets if you enjoy using them; make sure they each have a designated space and always return each one to its space. Do not buy more kitchen stuff unless you know you will use it and you know where you will keep it.
For the stuff you do have and use, try to group things together in a way that makes sense. If you like to make bread or muffins or cookies regularly, group all your baking items together (including those special baking ingredients like soda, powder, cream of tartar, and yeast). Put small items that are used at the same time into one larger container so you can get them out and onto your work surface in one quick motion. Stack your canned goods in groups: soups together, beans together, etc. Hang the utensils you use frequently on the wall where you use them: a magnetic knife strip over the cutting surface, ladles and whisks near the stove, scrapers and measuring spoons by the mixer.

A Weekly Grocery Trip
Frequent runs to the grocery store mean more money spent and more time wasted. Next time you are missing an ingredient, try doing without. If you have extra time and want to make something different, first check to see if you have all the ingredients. If you don’t, find a way around or find another recipe. Never go to the store for just “a couple of things.” You will, inevitably, come out with a cartful. Use your weekly meal plan to make your grocery list. If you are consistent in using the meal plan, your grocery list will also be fairly consistent from week to week. If you see something on sale that is on your list, stock up if you can, but don’t buy extras of something you don’t use often. Buy enough fresh fruits and vegetables to last the week. Use the ripest and most perishable ones earlier in the week.

One Extended Prep Time Per Week
The best time is when you get home from your weekly grocery trip and are unloading. Use the time to wash all fruits and vegetables, divide meat into meal-sized portions, and do some chopping and mixing. Salt and pepper and put the chicken in the oven to bake while you peel and dice the carrots for the soup and mix up some tuna salad for sandwiches. Put all your prepared food in separate containers or bags in the refrigerator; when dinner time comes, your work will be mostly completed.
This prep time is really the key to keeping your cooking simple and quick during the rest of the week. If you are a working Mom, you might want to devote one evening or a portion of your weekend to shopping and preparing. If you stay at home, designate one day as your shopping and food prepping day. Give yourself enough time to get all the possible ahead-of-time preparation for all six of your meals done. You don’t want to rush and be frustrated. Have a list of the tasks to do and get through them at a steady, relaxed pace. You can enjoy the extended time because you know you are saving yourself that much and far more through the rest of the week.

Simple Staples
You need to build a repertoire of quick, simple main dishes and sides so that your weekly meal plan remains uncomplicated. There are a plethora of 30-minute main dish recipes on the internet and in cookbooks. If you collect and master a few different types, you will be able to prepare ahead for them and do the actual day-of cooking without much time or effort. The more familiar your recipes are, the more efficient you can be in using them.
Simple side dishes often don’t even require a recipe. Think of things like fresh fruit, a salad, a good loaf of bread, or steamed vegetables. We all need more fresh food in our diet. Don’t kill yourself making a complicated fruit salad that involves peeling and slicing multiple varieties. Just stick to a plate of apple slices, or a bowl of fresh pineapple, or sectioned oranges. You can have a different kind of fruit every night and appreciate all the different tastes and textures. Salads don’t have to be complicated either. Some type of lettuce, washed and cut into bite-sized pieces, and a good dressing are sufficient. Add in a little cheese one night, some black olives another, sliced cucumbers the next.
Cooked side dishes can be equally simple: one kind of vegetable, steamed until it is tender-crisp, tossed in butter and salt and pepper, is satisfying to all the senses. Rice, any kind of noodle or grain, or a slice of bread will also serve your purpose. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking you have to present a plate with four different colors on it. There is no need for more than one main dish and one side. Often even the side can be optional.

Leftovers
Planning for leftovers does not mean you feed your family the bottom-scrapings of old stew. It means that when you make that chicken casserole, you go ahead and cook a few extra chicken breasts which you’ll serve as chicken sandwiches on the weekend or dice and freeze to use in tortilla soup next week. Planning for leftovers means that you will make an extra-large dish of the pasta your husband loves so he can have some to take for lunch. Leftover vegetables can be used in soups, stews, and casseroles. Leftover meats can be used for the same, or as filling for enchiladas and pot pies, or as the makings of a great chef salad or sub sandwich.

Get yourself adept at using the tools of simple weeknight meals and you can save (at least some of) your sanity and eliminate (at least some of) your stress. Start by putting together a weekly meal plan; it is the foundational tool for simple weeknight meals. Include simple staples as part of the plan. Build on that by stocking your pantry, and give yourself some time to declutter and organize your kitchen. The more you practice these principles, the more they will become second-nature.