Tired of ordering in? We hear you! Don’t have time to cook meals from scratch? We hear you there too!

Yes, we understand that making time to prepare delicious meals everyday may seem impossible when you’re navigating your way through work, deadlines and meetings. Like most things however, it can be done with just a little bit of organisation and planning ahead. 

The hardest part, as always, is getting started, but once you do, you won’t look back, and the benefits are immense! For one thing, preparing your own meals pretty much guarantees that you’re likely to make healthier choices, which in turns makes you more proactive and efficient in your day-to-day life.  The other great benefit is that it will save you money; decreasing your grocery bills to exactly what you need and reducing impulse buys, ordering in and eating out. 

All you need is to take some time out for yourself, 1 day a week (pick whatever day works best for you) to buy your ingredients, and prepare your meals for the week. Turn this into a part of your weekly routine, and soon enough it will become second nature.

If you’re new at this, check out the below steps on how to get started:

How to Navigate Work Life with Meal Planning

1. Pick a Day; though most people prep on Sundays, this may not be ideal for all of you. Pick a day, any day that works for YOU, and a time (whether it’s early morning or late evening) and allocate that time for meal preps.
2. Check your Calendar; since many of us have schedules that vary from one week to the next, it always helps to check your calendar to see what you have lined up. That way, if you happen to be busy during your allocated meal prep time, you can find another time to do it instead.  Don’t skip this step however, because leaving it too late will just make you fall back into old habits.
3. Prep your Ingredients; we all know that the prep is the hardest, most time-consuming part when it comes to cooking. So, do all your chopping, marinating, measuring etc in advance, and store everything in airtight containers. This will surely cut your cooking time in half when it comes time to make your meals.
4. Store Everything Separately; this helps you to mix and match, and to come up with a variety of meals from one day to the next, whereas storing everything together limits you more or less to the same meal for the upcoming week ahead, which can get somewhat boring.
5. Don’t Over-Plan; you don’t have to plan every single meal. If your work entails lots of lunches out with clients for example, then meal plan your breakfasts and dinners. Or, if you have a particularly social few days coming up, then plan for your breakfasts and lunches only, and leave dinner out for that week. Remember, the whole point of this is to eliminate waste, both food and financial.
6. Check Pantry & Freezer; before planning for the week, always see what you already have on hand and work from there. Do your best to use up whatever you have in your kitchen to reduce on shopping bills and waste.
7. Choose healthy ingredients; remember, your meal plan is to provide you with enough fuel and energy to get you through the workday, maintain efficiency and achieve maximum productivity.
8. Choose easy recipes; ones that are also easy to store and reheat, and make enough for at least 3 meals.

Check out healthy and nutritious recipes on yufeed.