Are We Still Doing Family Meetings?

In May of 2023, BJ blogged in Planning and Family Meetings? that we had just started a new habit a few weeks before of taking a few minutes to plan our week and chat, so I thought I’d update you on how it’s helped us and how we’ve adapted it. And yes, it still lives on the Power Clipboard, with any other documents we keep track of, including our Travel Day Checklist (link to our BOM Printables, where you can find that, and so much more)!

We still meet weekly, either on Sunday evening or Monday morning, depending on the week ahead. We fill out our plan sheet and discuss it one section at a time, but have adapted it a bit for our own purposes.

We start with our To Do list and sort them into High and Low Priorities. We also talk about who will take lead on what, if needed, and put our initial by it to remind us. While we do add other things daily, this helps us keep tabs on the big rocks and brainstorm.

Next we fill in our Appointments from the calendar, including any travel days or work plans. Since this can change week to week, it really helps us see what we will be working around.

Then we tackle the Posting Goals section. We aim to be at least 1-2 weeks ahead, with work already scheduled to post, but this is where we talk about keeping that on schedule, or if we need/want to move something around. We also talk about what we want to write about next, brainstorm and divide the work. Then we plan for postings and reels to go out for the week. Our reels are usually prepped in advance and held in a draft folder. I (Sonya) tend to work on these weekly to get them edited and voice overs, so they are ready to go out, either in chronological order, since we are usually way behind, or to pair with a blog coming out. For postings, we decide if we have something specific we want to post, or if we will just each do a random post that week. We will spontaneously post things, as well, but having a plan keeps us on track with a baseline.

We have found that meal planning helps us save money on groceries and avoid eating out, so the Primary Meal section helps us with that. We take inventory of what we have, think about places we want to eat in the area that week and plan for it. Then we can add items to the shopping list.

The Shopping List allows us to jot things down for groceries or other purchases so we can take care of that. We try to do our weekly planning before we go shopping for the week whenever possible, just to cut down on multiple trips for missing or forgotten items.

We also use this time to take care of travel planning, reviewing our son’s unschooling progress and goals for the week as well as other supplemental learning, and any other discussions or tasks that take both of our attention. All in all, we spend anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour each week doing this, just depending on what needs done, but it really sets us up for success for the week, with fewer arguments and missed tasks.

You can find the current version of the Weekly Planning, as well as other helpful printables, in the BOM Printables section of our website, click the words for the link. If our version doesn’t suit your needs, you can always adapt it!

Let us know in the comments if you use something similar, or even completely different! We are always looking for ways to improve our productivity.