Living an intentional life is about the small stuff. It’s the use of your hours and days that determine whether you’ll make your day meaningful or not. Quite often, we distract ourselves with the big picture and forget that our results are determined by what we do right now.
But having goals for the next 12 months won’t move you forward if you’re not careful about how you’re using your time on a small scale. If you fail to make effective use of your hours, you’ll be stuck in a reality that doesn’t match your expectations.
A weekly reset and proper planning will help you take your level of execution to the next level. If you follow me on social media, you’ve likely heard me talk about a weekly reset. It’s something that I do almost every Friday (doing this on Friday, allows me to reclaim my weekend to rest.) It’s nothing fancy, it’s just a handful of things I do each week to put our house and my life back in order.
“The main focus of my weekly reset is to set aside time every single week to put everything back in its home.”
Before I tell you what I do, let me tell you WHY I do it.
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I do my weekly reset because I have found that it helps me get our home back in order and gets my mind ready for the week ahead. I do it because it helps me lower the stress that can come from all of the to-dos on my plate.
That’s it.
Below, I’m sharing my favourite weekly reset tools and how to prepare for the week ahead. This is personal, so I’m going to present what works for me. Please feel free to share your thoughts and what has worked for you so far. The main things I do:
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De-clutter and organise, put things back to their home – I go through our entire apartment and anything that isn’t in its “home” I simply put back. I’ll also spend an hour or so, walking around our apartment and take out things we don’t USE, NEED or LOVE and put them in a donation box
- Weekly meal plan – Once our home is reset, I sit down and meal plan. As I meal plan, I check our pantry for food and create a shopping list accordingly
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Clean anything that needs it – I get asked all the time what my cleaning schedule is and are surprised when I say that I don’t have a schedule apart from the seasonal deep clean. Cleaning is basically done on an as-needed basis. I do, however, do a mid-week reset on Wednesdays – so the work doesn’t build up until Friday when I do my weekly reset
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Give my plant babies some TLC – Again, no strict schedule here. It just has become a natural thing I do when I do the reset because I’ve been doing it for so long
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Go over my finances – Check my bank accounts, my budget (it’s included in my online banking app), invoices, savings account and all of that stuff
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Check my calendar & create a fresh to-do list – I create my new to-do list ready for the coming week and check my calendar for any appointments, events etc.
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Empty all bins – Sunday evening is when we empty the bins, as I am attempting a ‘zero-waste lifestyle, we don’t actually have that much waste anymore
- Think of the little things – For me, this is all about planning out moments I want to experience throughout my days, it’s more like rituals; light a candle, play jazz music in the background and savour a cup of tea with a slice of cake
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Braindump – This is something I actually do on a daily basis – helps me remember things more easily, I’ll then go through my list on Friday and prioritise everything on that list and schedule it in
I know the list above looks long, but since I do it every week (and I’ve simplified our home and overall life tremendously over the last 10 months), it takes me a max of 1-1.5 hours. There is power in taking the little-by-little approach and using a routine to help you get things (the boring things!) done faster.
I’d love to hear about your weekly rituals (if you have any) in the comments below. I’m still tweaking and changing this routine to fit my needs better. Truth be told, this routine will evolve with me.
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