3 Routines to Make Your Weeks More Peaceful
Keep reading this post to learn:
⋒ 3 routines to do every week for a more peaceful life (they're realistic...promise)
⋒ How each of these routines will make your life more peaceful
⋒ How Jess does these routines in her own life
Tell me if you can relate -- you spend Monday-Friday flying by the seat of your pants, feeling completely frantic and wondering how you're gonna make it to the weekend. Then when you do make it to the weekend, you spend Friday night-Sunday afternoon nursing your burnout and overwhelm from the week. By Sunday night, you are plagued by the Sunday scaries and you wonder how you're gonna do this all over again tomorrow 🥴
Listen; it doesn't have to be that way! You can weave intentional routines into your daily life to help make your life better. You do not have to be in survival mode 24/7.
When you’re thinking about routines, here’s where I want your mind to be:
Routines are tools, routines are not chains.
Routines are meant to be created intentionally for you, routines are not based on what works for other people.
Routines are meant to support you, routines are not meant to stress you out.
So if a particular routine is causing more stress than peace… it’s time to revamp it. I’ve talked about this before on my podcast and Instagram before, but I like to think of routines are runways or ramps. Their purpose is to make our days flow well. To get us from one part of our day to the next as smoothly as possible. Routines help us to be intentional with our time so that we have more energy to dedicate to things that matter to us. Routines take the guesswork out of how you’re going to show up for your life.
When I’m brainstorming routines, I like to ask myself: “How do I want to feel during X?”
Then I ask, “What habits will help me achieve feeling that way?” and “What habits will prevent me from feeling that way?” I think it’s important to be aware of both positive and negative habits.
Now that we’ve done a little lesson on routines, let’s get into the good stuff – these are the 3 routines that will make your weeks more peaceful. For each one, I’m going to share what it is, why it’s helpful, and when I do it.
Now keep in mind, these are how I weave these routines into MY life. The purpose of me sharing is to get your wheels turning. Don’t feel like you have to copy my routines exactly or try to fit your life inside of my routine. Use these as a template to jump-start creating routines that support you and your season of life.
01. WEEKLY PREP MEETING
WHY:
To create an action plan for the following week – to intentionally prep for the coming week so you know where to spend your time and energy and what your Top 3 tasks are for the week.
Each week, set aside time for your weekly prep meeting so you can go into the next week knowing what your top priorities are to keep you on track with your goals.
I’m sure you’re not surprised to hear me say this, but if you just bust into a new week without having clear intentions, that’s when it feels like life is happening to you. And when you feel like life is happening to you, that’s when it’s really easy to tip into burnout and feel swept up in overwhelm.
Obviously, things probably are not going to go exactly according to the plan that you map out for the week, BUT, I’ve found that when I have a foundation for my week, it’s way easier to move things around as needed than just kind of taking each day as it comes and hoping for the best. Being able to see my whole week at a glance helps me to get my energy right for the week because I know what’s coming and when it’s coming.
WHAT:
So what do I do for my weekly prep meetings? I grab my Peacefully Productive Planner and open up to the weekly spread for the following week and I open up my Google calendar (this is where my team for work keeps track of any calls and meetings coming up and Adam and I also use it to keep track of any personal events that are coming up) to help me fill in my week. Now, I’ve tried to be an all-digital planner but it just does not work for me. I am a paper planner girlie through and through. It just helps my brain to process better and so I go with it despite the digital age we live in.
I’ll run through the steps real quick here, but just know that if you want to go deeper, I have a workshop that will teach you how to create a Weekly Skeleton or Weekly Routine Outline. You can check that out here. But here are the basics:
01. Plug in your scheduled responsibilities.
02. Plug in your non-negotiable priorities and any supporting habits.
03. Determine and schedule your Top 3 tasks for the week.
04. Schedule your weekly rest.
05. Determine and schedule other tasks that need to be done, carving out space for margin and transitions.
WHEN:
Most people do their weekly prep meeting on Sundays but that is just not my jam. I love doing my weekly prep meeting on Thursday afternoons – usually as my last work task of the week since I work Monday-Thursday typically. I found that when I did it on Sundays it stressed me out but doing it on Thursday afternoons fires me up because I’m able to relax more on the weekends knowing that the following week is already mapped out.
02. SCHEDULED REST ROUTINE
WHY:
This should be a well-known thing by now but I am a big believer in scheduling in regular rest. We do not have to earn our rest and rest isn’t something that you do when everything else on your to-do list is done. We should be operating from a place of rest because that is how we show up as the healthiest version of ourselves.
Rest should be treated like a weekly appointment with yourself. Put it on your calendar and stick to it.
WHAT:
So back in 2020, I read a book called The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry that completely transformed my life. I know that is a bold statement but I mean it. It’s a book that I re-read every year because it’s that impactful. One of the biggest practices that I took away from that book and now do in my own life is called Sabbath. If you grew up in church, that probably sounds familiar.
Sabbath to me is a day to focus on being instead of doing. A day to dedicate to remembering that I am not a machine and that God created rest for me as a gift.
So the way that I practice Sabbath varies from week to week, but usually the night before my weekly Sabbath day, I ask myself, “What kind of rest do I need right now?” There are actually 7 different types of rest – I have a whole podcast episode about them.
But the kind of rest that I am needing helps me decide how my Sabbath is gonna play out the next day. I will say, I try not to over plan my day of rest, because again, the emphasis is on being, not doing. I try to get quiet and really tune into what I need to recharge that week. Sometimes it looks like having a girls’ date with my bestie, going paddleboarding with Adam, or reorganizing my closet by myself while I listen to an audiobook (don’t judge me…organizing brings me joy, lol).
WHEN:
This varies depending on what we have going on as a family but my Sabbath day is typically either on Saturday or Sunday. If we have family stuff planned for one of the days then I’ll choose the other day. I make the decision of which day it’s going to be during my weekly prep meeting after chatting with Adam to go over what we have coming up the following week.
I used to think there was NO WAY I could take a day “off” from responsibilities. The thought of it actually made my skin crawl. There is too much to do for work and life, right? Listen, there will ALWAYS be tasks on your catch-all to-do lists. Literally, until the day you die, there will be something that needs to be done. So you can choose to let your tasks be the ruler of your life OR you can decide that you are worthy of rest every single week.
If the idea of a whole day off terrifies you - start smaller. Schedule a 3-hour rest window into your week. Then after you get used to that, amp it up to a half-a-day window. And keep going until you get to a whole day!
This practice has completely changed how I show up for my life. I’m a better wife, friend, and family member…a better me because of it. And honestly, I’m more productive during the week both in work and in life because I’m operating from rest and not burnout.
I’ve been doing the weekly prep meeting routine and rest routine for years at this point and I have truly experienced so much good fruit because of them, but this third routine that I’m going to share with y’all is a newer one for me but since I started implementing it in my life a few weeks ago, I’ve already noticed a big difference in my days.
03. Home Reset Routine
WHY:
With my energy being lower right now in my third trimester of pregnancy, I’m doing everything that I can to support my energy and steward it wisely. Doing this home reset routine once a week helps my energy levels not to get depleted as fast because I’m batching all of these things at once and not chipping away at them a little bit little all week long.
WHAT:
~ Tidy for 15: Whole house sweep
Y’all know I love my tidy for 15 minutes everyday habit that is part of Hustle Sanely 5. It truly does keep our home in order and helps keep me from feeling like I’m constantly trying to clean and keep up with our house. What usually works well for me is focusing on one room per day for my tidy for 15 and doing a mini deep clean of that room on that day. So if it’s a bathroom, I’ll wipe down the counters, tub, and toilet for example. You’d be amazed and how much you can knock out in 15 minutes.
Anyway, on Fridays, I’ve found that I’ve really been loving doing a whole house sweep – where I walk through the house and just see what needs to be tended to and do it. It’s kind of like a time that I can just see any open loops in the house that need to be closed.
~ Meal plan and order groceries
I haven’t been a meal planning kind of gal since I was in grad school. Mostly because I didn’t need to be – the last few years have been a little more free-flowing when it comes to our schedule but now that we are having a baby, I have a feeling that having meals planned out ahead of time is going to be really helpful and keep us from ordering Uber Eats for dinner every night.
So on Fridays, I’ve been spending like 20-25 minutes going on Pinterest, choosing 5 meals that look and sound good for dinner, adding what we need to our grocery list, and then placing a grocery order from Amazon Fresh to be delivered the next day. I literally just added a little chart at the bottom of our grocery list in the Notes app that says “Meal Plan” and then I just jot down the names of the 5 meals and the links to the recipes. Thankfully Adam does the cooking so I don’t have to worry about that.
I don’t plan out breakfasts and lunches because usually for breakfast I eat the same thing every day because I’m obsessed (toasted sourdough with laughing cow cheese, avocado, a piece of bacon, and a fried egg on top) and lunch is usually some sort of salad or leftovers from dinner.
~ Wash bedding
This is self-explanatory. But before, I didn’t really have a designated time to wash bedding. I just washed it when I felt like it needed it but I don’t want to have to think about it anymore so I’ve automated it by just assigning it to Friday mornings. Bye, bye guesswork, and hello saving sweet brain power and energy.
When:
I’m still toying around with when my favorite time of the week is to do this but it’s feeling like a Friday thing for me.
So like I said earlier, I typically don’t work on Fridays (unless we’re in launch mode or something) so I tend to like to use Fridays to focus on life things. I call it my “life admin day.” I spend a chunk of time every Friday closing open loops from my personal catch-all task list and I try to schedule the majority of my appointments on Fridays (for example therapy, nails, hair, etc.). I’ve been testing out doing my home reset routine on Friday mornings after the gym and so far so good! I’d say I spend around an hour on this home reset routine.
If you are still looking for support when it comes to mapping out your week, check out our How to Plan A Peacefully Productive Week workshop for just $49! It is a great resource and will lead you through a weekly prep meeting, step by step!
Enjoy this post? Tune into the full podcast episode below!
