Life is becoming increasingly more hectic. I’m hearing it all too often from my friends. Days blend together with never-ending errands and housework, children need to be shuttled between school and extra-curricular activities, and let’s not forget throwing work into that mix. So, it can become difficult to find time to cook a healthy, nutritious meal every day, and it’s all too easy to fall victim to eating out, ordering in, or popping a frozen dinner into the microwave.

Here are five tips that will help you plan your meals ahead of time.

Weekly Menu

• Organizing your weekly menu doesn’t have to be complicated or time consuming. Start small. One day a week, preferably Saturday or Sunday, break out those cookbooks, magazine clippings and on-line recipes that you have bookmarked to plan ahead for the following week. Organize your meal plan using a combination of your families’ favorite dishes along with a couple of new dishes you have wanted to try. By doing this, you aren’t having the same meals over and over, you can incorporate new food groups into your meals but you do not have to plan seven new dishes from scratch.

Share the cooking

• Incorporate a do-it-yourself night into your meal plan. Setting up a self-serve bar will not only alleviate that final step of dishing up that you would normally take care of, but also encourage your children to get involved in the kitchen and with what they are eating. And, let’s face it, how often do we hear “I don’t like that” as we give them a tomato for the second time that week and they pout throughout their meal. Bar night, makes for a stress free night. Also, with everything in individual dishes already, it makes sealing up leftovers to refrigerate a breeze. Looking for a few do-it-yourself night ideas? How does a pasta bar, taco night, or hamburgers sound?

• Are you or your husband a master at the grill? Add in a grill night. While one of you is taking care of the grill, the other can whip up a couple of the side dishes in the kitchen.

• Get your kids involved. If you have an older child, now is the time for them to learn how to make a dish like a chef. Recipes are their best friend, they will find that they need the guidance with the step-by-step instructions, but it will also give them a sense of pride that they were able to prepare a dish and contribute to your evening meal. Plus, one day they’ll be off at college and you won’t have to take out shares in a pizza delivery service.

The crockpot is your best friend

• From soup, to casseroles, and even lasagna, there’s a plethora of possibilities these days for cooking ahead using your crockpot. What could be better than popping your ingredients in by lunchtime, coming home at dinner time and being able to dish up immediately?

Cook twice as much

• Let’s say you are making a chicken stir-fry for dinner one night, cook up extra chicken and refrigerate or freeze it to use it later in the week for a different dish, such as a casserole or soup. The same applies for other items you may need to cook or chop, for example diced onions, freshly grated cheese, and rice.

Cook ahead of time and freeze

• Allocate one day to cook a few meals and freeze them to be used throughout the week. Casseroles, spaghetti sauce, homemade pizza, and soup are just a few dishes that freeze well. These are also the perfect solution for nights that don’t go as planned and you are left scrambling with no time to cook a meal that you had initially planned to make.

Now you have the tools needed to create a meal plan to suite your hectic lifestyle.