A Different Type of Date Night

Calm the chaos with family planning days

A few years ago, on NYE my hubby asked what my New Year's resolution was. Now, I am not a huge fan of setting resolutions…. but this year was different. Working as a nurse and juggling two young children had pushed me to the brink, and something had to change. I was stressed, overwhelmed and our home felt chaotic and messy.

So, my New Year's resolution was to be a better planner and more organised. There’s something you may not know about me…. I am an absolutely planning geek! I love planning and to-do lists and stationery.

My husband jokes that I have a to-do list for my to-do list…. should I tell him the truth?! 🤫

Somewhere over the last several years of babies and working I had lost my planning and organisation mojo. So, I decided to use my planning skills to get our home life sorted.

Rather than chaos and mess, it would be calm and organised.

Top tips for planning

• Use Google Calendar - sync yours and your partner’s so you can both keep up with everything.
• Yearly wall planner somewhere you can see — mine is on our fridge!
• Set aside yearly, quarterly, and monthly dates for planning.
• Make these planning dates special with some delicious food, dessert and wine!
• Set achievable goals for finances, family and yourself.
• Rotating meal plan for the win!

No plan is complete without some new stationery and well…a plan!

I bought a huge yearly wall planner, notebooks, yearly diary, pens and highlighters. Is there anything better than the smell of new stationery?

I set aside an afternoon for my hubby and I to sit down and plan. This is a big planning session to cover the basics for a year and has now become an annual tradition in our house.

I put out some games to keep the kiddos occupied, set out snacks and drinks for us all and then we sat down to plan our plan!

Oh, how my planning heart was singing! 😍

The first step of our “family planning date” was to schedule in our planning dates for the year on the wall planner.

• One BIG yearly date
• Then quarterly for the rest of the year.
• Monthly “check-in” sessions + a Barefoot Date Night.

Once these dates were scheduled, it was time to get to the hard work.

BIG yearly session.

This particular afternoon is all about the whole year ahead.

First, we look at the past year:

• What has worked and what hasn’t worked
• If we achieved the goals we set
• Areas that we need more help or focus on moving forward.

Then we look at the coming year and set:

• Financial goals
• Family goals
• Individual goals

I take out my brand-new notebook and create a different section for goal planning for each category. And then over a cup of coffee (or wine) we set out our goals for the year ahead.

Financial goals

Financial goals sound boring, but they are important. My husband and I like to have a budget and specific goals in mind to keep us on track and living the life we want.

We discovered the Barefoot Investor several years ago and have never looked back. His strategy has helped us to develop a budget we can stick to and grow our savings.

For financial goals we look at things like:

• How much we need to save for a family holiday
• Map out our big bills for the year and make sure we have budgeted accordingly (insurance, registration, etc.)
• Are there any “big things” we want to buy? For example, this year we bought the kiddos a peewee 50.
• Mortgage repayments
• Non-disposable savings (this is savings we do not touch)
• Did our budget work last year and if we need to make any adjustments. For example, our grocery bill. I mean it is ridiculous how much food these kids eat!
• We write all the bills into the yearly planner so we can see any “heavy traffic” areas — times when a lot of bills are clustered together. This helps us with our budgeting.

Family Goals:

The addition of family goals into our annual planning sessions has been amazing.

If the pandemic and lockdowns taught us anything, it is the value of quality family time. So, this is where our family goal planning comes into play.

Here are our family goals for 2022 to give you an idea:

• One weekend of every six we have a “do-nothing” weekend. We stay at home and spend quality time together.
• Two camping weekends
• A big family trip
• One full day every six weeks where we get “alone” time. We dump the kids on a babysitter and then hubby does his thing, I do mine. A whole blissful day to myself!
• At least once every six weeks hubby and I have a date night.

Individual goals:

There is something to be said for setting individual goals with a partner.

First, when you speak your goals out loud you give them power. You are stating your intentions and putting them out into the universe. By speaking them out loud you WILL manifest your personal goals.

Second, you can hold each other accountable!

Third, if we know what our goals are, we can help each other achieve them.

For example, my husband knows that one of my big goals this year is to focus more on novel writing. So, when we set out our plan for the week, he helps incorporate writing time into it by taking the kids for an afternoon or doing all the evening-time routine one night a week, so I have more time to focus on writing.

Quarterly planning sessions.

We set aside a date each quarter to check in on our big goals and see how we are doing.

It is a great excuse to have an in-home date. We pop the kids down for the night, crack a bottle of wine and order some Menulog.

These sessions are not big like the yearly planning session. Really it is just to check in on our budget and goals and re-jig anything that is not working.

We also look at things like:

• School holidays — what holiday care days do we need, what babysitters do we have available for what days, etcetera
• Planning a cook up for school lunchboxes.
• Babysitters for our date nights/days
• Weekends away to visit family
• Birthdays, parties and presents
• Special occasions like anniversaries, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Easter and Christmas

Monthly planning sessions

We set a quick planning session for the last day of the month. This one revolves around Scott Papes Barefoot Investor Serviette Strategy.

Again, Menulog and a glass of wine feature heavily!

The point of this session is to check in on our finances, make sure all the bills are paid and that we are on track with our savings goals. We make sure our Google calendars are synced properly so we can see all the appointments and reminders.

We also like to look at what is coming up for school and kindergarten such as family days, fundraising, excursions, pupil free days etcetera and make sure we have everything organised and paid for.

Weekly Planning Session

Oh my gosh, are you all sick of the planning sessions yet? Coz I sure as heck am not! 🤣

On a Sunday we sit down with the calendar and paper diary plus google calendar on our phones and plan out our week.

This is in-depth planning, down to things like when each of us will exercise, who is dropping and picking up kids from school, kindergarten, swimming lessons and other extracurricular stuff.

We also do a meal plan and work out when (and who) will do the grocery shopping.

Check out this post on a six-week rotating meal plan I use that saves us so much time, headaches and wasted food!

Rachel Maree is a writer, mum and registered nurse. Bringing you the real truth to parenting, nursing and writing (even when it is downright ugly). You can read more articles or hire her to write amazing content for you — Rachel Maree.

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