So,
I've decided that my 80% of my job as a mom revolves around food. I am pretty much a health nut and we are
currently avoiding wheat/gluten. So,
probably 90% of what my family eats is made from scratch---something I am very
proud of! Anyways...as a result I spend
a lot of time menu planning, creating shopping lists, going shopping, putting
food away, prepping food, cleaning up after meals, and yes, even cleaning up
what comes out the other end as a result of food! I am sure most of you can relate :)
So
food planning and preparation is one place that I've applied a lot of lean
thinking. One of my favorite lean tools is something we call standard
work. This is defined as the documented best way to achieve
the right results.
What
does that mean? As we travel through
life and running our households, we are constantly perfecting how we do things
-- basically through the Plan-Do-Check-Adjust model. So standard work simply means, write it down!
If
you are familiar with Flylady her
"Control Journal" where you keep your morning, afternoon, and evening
routines are a perfect example of standard work.
The
beauty of standard work is it takes the routine 80% of your tasks and makes
them mindless, which frees up your brain to focus on the exceptional 20% of
life.
Checklists
and fillable forms are my personal favorite forms of standard work. The idea is to take something that you do
over and over again -- and write it down in a standard way, so that next time
you can create the same results, with less work, thinking and planning.
I
have standard work all over the place and rely on it heavily to keep our house
running smoothly, yet allowing me to conserve thinking.
Menu Planning Steps including Standard Work
I know menu
planning is a struggle for many, as it is for me, so I've tried to make it as
easy as possible. Here is how I used the
tool of standard work to make it easier:
1. I do two weeks of menu planning at a time
using this "standard work" form.
I have it formatted so it prints two per page portrait style. So what you are looking at is on a half-sized
page.
2. To be honest, I hate deciding on the menu
plan -- and it does take me a good chunk of time -- probably 30-45 minutes
(time on task--excluding interruptions) for a two week plan. I usually look at my calendar so that if I
have a late night I can plan something easier or out of the freezer.
To make this
step easier, about three months ago I created an index of all our dinners. This has made a huge difference! Now instead of pulling out various cookbooks
or my notebook of printed recipes mostly from Allrecipes.com, I just look at this. Here's a photocopy of mine which is
handwritten and sorted by type of meat and slow cooker.
Also,
about two years ago I implemented "No Cook Night," which is when we
have leftovers or easily prepped food like hotdogs. I typically plan NCN for Wednesday to give me
a break in the middle of the week. I
also usually plan another day of leftovers on the weekend. So I only actually plan 5 meals a week.
3. I create a grocery list from that menu plan,
and go "big" grocery shopping every other week with my 3-year old
super shopper helper.
To
make this easier, I have created a master shopping list in Excel. It is
organized in the same way as the grocery store.
I print about 4-5 copies of these at a time and hang them on the refrigerator. As I need things I just check them off. I am on my second major version -- I needed a
new one when I started shopping at a different store.
4. I then transfer one week of meals on my
visual board. Don't be afraid of
flexibility --we never have the meals on the board exactly in the way
planned. I will often flip two days, be
too tired to cook one day -- so pull something from the freezer and bump the
planned meal down. The idea is that you
know you have the food and option to prepare that meal.
Voila! Menu and food planning made a little easier.
I
use standard work to make all sorts of things easier: daily tasks/routines, packing for travel,
planning my day, etc. I will talk about
these in later posts.
Your Next Steps
So
what can you do? Here are some steps to
get started:
1.
Make a list of all the meals you eat -- categorized however makes sense
to you (main ingredient (beef, pork, chicken...), time to prepare, number of
ingredients needed, etc.).
2.
Create or download the meal planning form. Start with planning one week at a time -- a
little less daunting.
3. Or,
how else might you be able to use standardized work to make routine tasks
easier?
Good
luck!
