Setting Up the Rotation Grid

What I am about to introduce to you is not rocket science. It's a simple table set up in whatever word processing application you use. Mine is set up using 7 cells in a row and the rows can go on to infinity if you like. You will actually need 4 documents with a simple table in each one: One for breakfast, one for lunch, one for dinners, and one for desserts/snacks.

Now what in the world am I going to use a table for, you ask? Well, I'm going to tell you. You are going to enter one complete meal per cell. To do this, start with your first resource mentioned in the previous post Getting Started with Meal Planning - Resources. For example, in my list Cookbooks is my first resource. I use Cookbooks first because it is a place where I can pull a variety of meal types from one place and come up with complete meals for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. It's a good resource to use when getting started with your meal plan.

As you enter the recipe name in the grid, don't forget to note where the recipe came from. For example:

Lasagna (Betty Crocker Quick and Easy)
Salad
French Bread

You could even put the page number if you think you need it. When you have a complete meal put together on the grid, bold it. That way you know that meal has all the elements that you require. Enter all the recipes that you want from whatever resource you are using at the time, even though you may not be able to put a complete meal together right now. It is possible that you will find something to match up with it using the next resource.

You are done meal planning for the week. I only add to my meal plan grid once a week, usually on Friday. However, you can choose whichever day of the week that suits you best. Friday just works for me. The next week you will add to your grid using the next resource on your list. As you put together complete meals and bold them, you may have them scattered all around your grid. For the sake of organization, I move all the bolded meals to the top of the grid. Once you take a complete meal from the grid, delete it. I do this for breakfast lunch and dinner and also desserts and snacks.

Now, I could go into some more details about how I tweak my grid, but I don't want to overwhelm you for now. We will get to that later.