Plan the Work/Work the Plan

Inspiration and Accountability for the Executive Work of Motherhood

Mar 22, 2026

One of the things that I really miss from the early days of blogging is round-ups! A writer would post on a topic and other writers would post on the same topic, link back to the original post and add links from others as well. It was a great way to read and learn about a particular idea or piece of life and as a young mother it gave me the opportunity to see how others managed their laundry, or helped their children sleep better, or even what kinds of mental resets could be had in small pockets of time.

I’ve noticed that my posts that have meal plans, or plans for the week are some of my most popular and I thought it would be fun for a while to write a post that shows how I go about planning the week and invite people to drop links to their plans into the comments, comment with their plan, or comment with “my week has all these things in it, help!” Seeing/reading how other mothers manage their Glorious Chaos is one of the great benefits of the village even the virtual one.

Know someone who loves to plan or struggles to plan? Share this post with them!

First Step: Where Will I Keep the Plan? How Bossy Will It Be?

I’ve used a variety of notebooks and planners over the years. Sometimes changing to a new format has helped me to be re-inspired to do the work of planning and sometimes I’ve made the change because my method needed to become more flexible or portable or less so.

Currently, I am printing pages (that I designed to go along with The Liturgy of the Hours for Mothers) each week as I work out the design, but once I’m happy with it, I’ll be printing enough pages to get me through to the end of the year and binding them into a notebook. I don’t love binders as I find them unwieldy to carry around and eventually the pages tear and are lost but right now I need the flexibility as I figure out what order I want things in in the bound book.

I have four sections in my binder: the Liturgy of the Hours for Mothers with the Lectionary readings and collects through Holy Week, plans for weeks that are past that I can refer to as needed, cleaning lists for each room, and a section for projects that has lists of ideas, the plan for the garden and so on. During the day the binder sits open near my tea tray where it is easy to see and use. I generally review the day plan first thing in the morning and then keep the binder open to prayer cycle.

I try to keep the plan pretty bossy as that helps me to stay focused by eliminating the need to decide what to do next.

Second Step: Two Plans: One for the Week and One for the Day

The first step for me is to plan out the whole week: especially checking on the calendar to see where I need to be at critical times. Am I home in time to make dinner or should dinner be made at lunch time? When will I run a quick errand? Which big kid will need a ride to work or class because of weather?