The 5-Step Meal Planning System (Busy Week Edition) 

If your week feels like a blur of meetings, deadlines, and last-minute errands, the last thing you want is to waste brainpower figuring out what’s for dinner. 

That’s why I use a system, not a complicated spreadsheet, but a repeatable process I can lean on even in the busiest weeks. Once you set it up, it practically runs on autopilot. 

In this guide, I’ll walk you through the five-step meal planning system I use when life is hectic. You’ll see how to design your week around your real schedule, not some unrealistic idea of home-cooked perfection. 

Want a shortcut? Grab my 7-Day Meal Plan Freebie. It’s ready to use and takes the guesswork out of your first week. 

Step 1: How to Plan Meals Around Your Busy Week 

Meal planning doesn’t actually start in the kitchen, it starts with your calendar. Before you even think about groceries or recipes, look at your week ahead. 

Are there late meetings? Commute days? Gym nights? Kids’ activities? These are your “red days”, the ones where cooking feels impossible. If you don’t plan for them, they’ll throw your whole system off. 

For example, my Thursdays are always stacked with meetings. If I don’t plan ahead, I grab takeout. But if I have for lunch soup waiting from Wednesday batch cook, dinner is ready in minutes. 

You don’t need to overcomplicate this. Just spend five minutes on Saturday or Sunday looking at your schedule. Mark the days where cooking feels like too much. Then, decide which meals those days will get reheatable batch meals, leftovers, or ultra-quick dishes. 

This one small shift is a game-changer. Instead of meal planning based on an ideal week where you magically have time every evening, you plan based on your real life. 

This system is exactly what made weeks like This Week’s Plan That Kept Me Out of the Kitchen After 6 PM possible without extra effort.

Step 2: Choosing Meal Anchors (Your Go-To Dishes) 

Once you know your week’s shape, it’s time to set anchors. Think of them as your reliable, no-brainer meals, the ones you can cook or assemble without even glancing at a recipe. 

You don’t need seven unique breakfasts and seven different dinners. In fact, repetition is your friend. Choose two or three go-to options for each meal type, and let them do the heavy lifting. 

For breakfast, maybe it’s overnight oats, scrambled eggs with toast, and smoothies.

For lunch, you might rely on a chicken wrap, soup and bread, or pasta with a quick homemade sauce.

For dinner, sheet-pan chicken, stir-fries, or baked salmon with potatoes are excellent anchors. 

The point of anchors is to reduce decision fatigue. You don’t have to think from scratch every night. Anchors also simplify grocery shopping because you know exactly what staples to buy. 

A good way to think about it is: anchors provide structure, while the remaining 20% of meals give you flexibility. Maybe you try a new recipe on Saturday night or grab takeout with friends. That’s fine. Anchors keep you consistent without feeling restrictive. 

Step 3: Batch Cooking and Doubling Up for Meal Planning 

This step is where busy people save the most time. Instead of cooking seven separate dinners, you cook two larger sessions and stretch them across the week. 

Here’s how I usually do it: one batch on Sunday and another midweek. Roast vegetables, cook chicken or salmon, and make a pot of soup. Those become the building blocks for multiple meals. 

Grilled chicken might be dinner on Sunday, then Monday’s lunch wrap. A big pot of soup becomes dinner one night and a quick lunch the next. Roasted potatoes can appear in different meals as side dishes. 

Batching isn’t just about efficiency. It’s also about peace of mind. I used to cook every single night, which meant I spent at least 45 minutes in the kitchen after a long day. Now, I spend that same 45 minutes twice a week, and the rest of the evenings are stress-free. 

Even if you love cooking, doubling up saves you from burnout. Knowing you only need to “properly” cook two or three times makes meal planning far less intimidating. 

Step 4: Smart Grocery System for Easy Meal Planning 

Most meal planning efforts fall apart in the grocery store. You forget one key ingredient, or you spend an hour wandering the aisles, and suddenly the system feels stressful. 

The solution is to create a default grocery list. This is a master list of staples you always want to keep on hand. Mine includes eggs, rice, frozen vegetables, canned tomatoes, chicken breast, pasta, wraps, olive oil, and yogurt. Each week, I start with this list, cross off what I already have, and add extras depending on the week’s anchors. 

Organizing your list by supermarket sections saves even more time. Walk through produce, then protein, then pantry, then dairy. No backtracking, no forgotten items. 

It may sound small, but this structure turns grocery shopping into a 20-minute errand instead of an exhausting weekend task. And because you’re stocked with staples, you don’t have to panic when you run out of something midweek. 

This step also makes the rest of your system more sustainable. Anchors are easy when your kitchen is already stocked with the basics they require. 

Step 5: How to Set a Daily Meal Planning Routine 

The last piece of the system is timing. A meal plan only works if it fits your daily flow. 

If you work from home, mornings are a great time for quick prep. Spend 15 minutes chopping veggies, marinating protein, or starting rice while your coffee brews. Later, when you’re done with work, dinner is half done. 

If you commute, evenings might be your best chance. While dinner is cooking, pack your lunch for the next day or assemble overnight oats for breakfast. These little habits prevent the “too tired to cook” moment from derailing your plan. 

I used to waste 30 minutes every night between 7 and 7:30 PM just debating dinner. That’s 2.5 hours a week gone. Once I started setting a rhythm, just five minutes of prep at predictable times, I got those hours back. My evenings feel calmer, and I eat better too. 

The trick is to find your pocket of time and protect it. It doesn’t have to be long. It just has to be consistent. 

Why Meal Planning Gets Easier After the First Week 

I know what you might be thinking: “This sounds like a lot of steps. Do I really have time to do all this on top of everything else?” 

The system always feels more complicated when you’re reading about it than when you’re actually doing it. The first time, you’ll be checking the steps and maybe overthinking a little. But by the second or third week, it starts to be easier. 

You’ll notice patterns. You’ll know your anchors by heart. You’ll remember that you always run out of wraps by Thursday, or that soup lasts you exactly two lunches. Pretty soon, you won’t even need to look at a checklist. 

It’s like learning to ride a bike: wobbly at first, then suddenly natural. Meal planning becomes something you just do almost without noticing. And when you hit that point, you’ll wonder how you ever managed without it. 

If this feels new or overwhelming, start with Beginner’s Step-by-Step Guide to Weekly Meal Planning to build the basics first.

Common Meal Planning Mistakes 

Now that you’ve seen the system, let’s touch on the mistakes that often trip people up: 

• Overplanning. Trying to cook seven unique meals every week is a recipe for burnout. 

• Ignoring your schedule. A plan that doesn’t match your lifestyle will collapse by Wednesday. 

• Skipping grocery prep. Without a default list, shopping takes too long and you end up missing key ingredients. 

• No flexibility. Leave room for a night out or a spontaneous recipe. Rigidity makes planning feel like a chore. 

Avoiding these pitfalls makes the five-step system much easier to maintain long-term. 

5-Step Meal Planning System at a Glance 

Here’s the full system in one view: 

1. Start with your calendar, not your cravings. 

2. Choose anchors for consistency. 

3. Batch-cook twice a week. 

4. Shop smarter with a default list. 

5. Match prep to your daily rhythm. 

When you follow this process, busy weeks stop being stressful. Instead of wondering what to cook each night, you’ll know exactly what’s waiting in your fridge. 

Final Thoughts

Meal planning doesn’t have to be complicated. With this five-step system, you’ll finally feel like meals fit into your life instead of disrupting it.

It’s flexible enough to handle your busiest weeks and repeatable enough to stick with long-term.