back in my pre-kid days, i remember feeling completely baffled by some of the time-saving measures taken by a friend, who was working outside of the home, parenting, and pursuing her masters degree. every sunday, for example, she would pour her preschool son’s milk into 14 little containers so as to shave milliseconds from her weekday lunch and dinner prep time. this struck me as the same mentality employed by olympic swimmers, who shave their whole bodies for a swifter glide through the water. i wondered why my friend was making parenting into an olympic sport.

but now that i am a parent, i have a new perspective. i find myself strategizing about how to cut corners. i have yet to fill my fridge with tiny little milk containers but i no longer question my friend’s time-saving practices. as a mom, an employee, and a student, she was triathlete. her life was necessarily one of high stakes and high structure, and if i saw her again, i’d give her a gold medal.

i have been training for my own event over here, and the good news is that my personal record times will not be adversely affected by my ambivalence toward shaving. i’ve been trying to streamline the meal planning and grocery shopping processes that have historically usurped much of my valuable weekend family time.

my friend sarah mentioned in passing several years ago that she has a weekly grocery list on her computer with all of the staples her family needs for a week. i have recently borrowed this idea, and now i simply print up my own such list (diapers, applesauce, milk, detergent, et cetera) before heading to the grocery.

i am also now following my friend tiffany’s lead, and i have compiled several weekly meal plans that work well for our family. so, for example, if sunday morning rolls around and i would rather watch paint dry than spend time planing our meals for the week (which is often the case), i can simply pull out a previously compiled list of tried-and-true dinners complete with its corresponding pre-compiled list of needed grocery items, and i’m good to go. tiffany’s weekly meal plans are seasonal and make use of many fresh ingredients. i guess this is what makes her an olympian and myself just an olympic hopeful.

i would love to hear about the tactics you use to simplify your life. if you are interested in my weekly meal plans, i’ll be posting them soon. just click on the “weekly meal plans” heading located on the sidebar to your right.

[thanks to http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/35584821/ns/today-today_in_vancouver/ for the olympic curling image.]