Are there days when you feel as though your brain may explode from the continuous cycle of thinking, planning and organising required to manage your family life?
Ensuring the kids have clean school uniform, keeping a stash of face masks in your bag and car for every family member, booking that vet’s appointment, remembering to pay the window cleaner, planning what’s for dinner, writing the food shopping list – all while trying to manage a work/life balance, a social life and start that Couchto5k app. The school admin alone is a full-time job in our house!
The mental load is all this and more, it’s the planning, remembering, knowing and worrying about all the mental post-it notes needed to run your family. Those mental post-it notes that keep everyone healthy and happy. Those mental post-it notes stuck one on top of the other, those on the bottom often being overlooked, and the odd one which becomes unstuck and floats away.
It’s no wonder that you often end the day (or start the day!) with a tired, overworked brain.
FiveDinners can really help to reduce this mental load.
Meal planning
Meal planning can be one of those things that feels like an uphill struggle in itself,
Unlike Theo I am not a natural in the kitchen, I don’t have the ability to open the fridge or kitchen cupboards and feel inspired by the ingredients to make a delicious family dinner. The very thought of meal planning used to fill me with dread and it is one of my mental post-it notes which never saw the light of day.
Before meal planning I would get very anxious about what to cook for dinner (if Theo wasn’t around ? ) and I’d have to find the brain power from somewhere to conjure up a tasty tea at the exact time all three of our munchkins arrived home from school and the house resolved into chaos once again.
The call of “What’s for dinner?” would really stress me out.
But I have come to appreciate and love how much meal planning can help relieve the mental load – to be honest for someone who is useless at cooking, meal planning has been a game changer for me.
It’s a beautiful thing to wake up in the morning already knowing and prepared for dinner. I don’t spend any part of my day trying to think of what to cook, that mental post-it note is officially surplus to requirements.
And with FiveDinners it’s even better because the meal planning is done for you – now that really is a game changer!
Shopping list
Of course with meal planning comes the food shopping.
I have found that being able to see that mental post-it note written down on paper helps to reduce the mental load whizzing round my head.
Making a shopping list of the ingredients needed for the week ahead helps to reduce anxiety in the supermarket, it means that items won’t be forgotten and you won’t pick up unnecessary ingredients that will go to waste.
And FiveDinners has got you covered once again because the shopping list for each week’s meal plan is already created for you. Another mental post-it note ticked.
In fact, maybe if you print out the FiveDinners shopping list and leave it next to the car keys… someone else in the household might do the shopping for you!
FiveDinners helps to reduce the mental load with a weekly meal plan curated for you and a complete shopping list.
That’s one less mental post-it note to worry about.
Click here to try FiveDinners today with a weeks free trial.
