TLDR: Sunday used to be the day I told myself I’d get organized and then didn’t. Now it’s the day that makes every other day easier. A few hours of deliberate prep means Monday through Friday run on autopilot for the stuff that doesn’t need to be a decision. Here’s exactly what I do and why each piece is in there.
Why Sunday Prep Exists in My Life
I have three daughters, a full-time job in software, a training schedule that doesn’t care how tired I am, and a blog I’m trying to build. My weeks are not slow. And for a long time, I was starting every Monday already behind because I hadn’t done anything to set myself up the day before.
The chaos wasn’t the problem. Chaos is just the operating condition. The problem was making the same decisions over and over again throughout the week — what to eat, when to train, what to wear, what to feed the kids — when I could have made those decisions once on Sunday and been done with them.
That’s what Sunday prep is. It’s front-loading the thinking so the week runs on decisions I’ve already made instead of ones I have to make at 6am when I’m half asleep and already late.
What the Routine Actually Looks Like
I don’t run a rigid schedule. The order shifts depending on what the kids have going on and when my wife and I can tag team the day. But the things that happen are consistent. Here’s all of it.
Review the week’s calendar first thing. Before I do anything else, I look at the whole week. Work commitments, the kids’ activities, hockey or rugby if there’s a game, date nights, anything that’s already on the board. This is the input for everything else. If I skip this step, the rest of the prep is built on assumptions that might not survive contact with Tuesday.
Plan the training schedule around the actual week. This is where being a runner and a lifter with a real life gets complicated. I don’t just copy last week’s training. I look at what’s on the calendar and figure out where the long run fits, which days I can get to the gym before work, and which days are realistically a rest day whether I planned it or not. A Thursday hockey game means I’m not programming a hard leg session for Thursday morning. A long run Saturday means Friday is easy or off. The plan has to fit the week, not the other way around.
Plan meals and build the grocery list. I do this right after training planning because the two are connected. Heavy training days need more food. Easy days don’t. I map out dinners for the week, figure out what lunches look like, and build the grocery list from there. I try to pick at least two or three meals that use overlapping ingredients to keep the list manageable and reduce waste. The list gets organized by section before I leave the house so I’m not wandering the store twice.
Grocery shop and get it done. I go alone if I can. Nothing against the family, but a solo grocery run takes half the time. I get in, I work the list, I leave. It’s one of the few tasks in my week that I can execute with complete efficiency if I’m not also managing three small humans.
Prep kids’ breakfasts for the week. This one sounds small and it is massive. Weekday mornings are a controlled disaster in our house. Three kids, and a clock that does not care about any of it. So on Sunday I batch prep breakfasts that just need to be reheated. Egg muffins, overnight oats, mini pancakes, whatever works that week. I portion them out, they go in the fridge, and Monday through Friday morning becomes grab-and-reheat instead of cook-from-scratch while simultaneously finding a lost shoe.
Do the laundry. All of it. Work clothes, gym clothes, the kids’ stuff. I don’t want to be hunting for a clean compression top at 5:30am on Wednesday because I skipped laundry Sunday. Clean gym kit for the whole week is non-negotiable. It’s a small thing that eliminates a specific kind of friction that has derailed more early morning sessions than I’d like to admit.
Set up the week in Notion. I spend about fifteen minutes at the end of the day looking at what’s coming, making sure anything time-sensitive is captured, and clearing anything that’s been sitting in my inbox or task list that needs a decision. I’m not building a complicated system here. I just want to start Monday knowing what Monday actually is, instead of opening my laptop and finding surprises.
Why I Do It This Way
The whole routine is built around one principle: reduce the number of decisions I have to make during the week. Every item on the Sunday list is a decision I’m removing from Monday through Friday. What’s for dinner? Already handled. When am I running? Already on the calendar. Do I have clean gym clothes? Yes, because Sunday. What are the kids eating for breakfast? Reheating it right now.
Decision fatigue is real. I work in software, I’m parenting three kids, I’m training at a level that requires actual thought about recovery and load. I don’t have unlimited bandwidth for small decisions. The more of those I can eliminate before the week starts, the more mental space I have for the things that actually require it.
The other thing: this routine is what makes training consistent. It’s easy to run when you feel good and the week is light. It’s hard when Wednesday has back-to-back meetings and you didn’t plan a window to get moving and there’s nothing prepped for dinner so you have to cook from scratch and by the time that’s done it’s 8pm and the workout is gone. Sunday prep closes those gaps before they open.
What Gets in the Way
Travel is the main disruptor. When I’m away for work or a race, the whole routine either doesn’t happen or happens in a compressed version that covers the most critical pieces. Meal prep obviously doesn’t travel. Training planning still happens because that’s just fifteen minutes with a calendar. Laundry gets done Friday before I leave if I’m thinking clearly.
The other one is a genuinely packed Sunday. Kids’ activities, a long race the day before that left me useless, a family commitment that takes the whole day. When that happens, I triage. Training planning always happens because it costs five minutes and affects every day. Laundry always happens because it runs in the background. The rest I do what I can with and accept that the week will be slightly harder than usual. That’s fine. One imperfect week doesn’t break the system.
How to Start
Don’t try to implement all of this at once. Pick the one thing that would make the most difference in your week right now. For most people with kids it’s the breakfast prep. For most athletes it’s the training planning. Start there, do it for a few weeks until it’s automatic, then add the next piece. Building the whole Sunday routine at once is just another version of the Monday overhaul problem. It won’t stick.
Try This First
This Sunday, before you do anything else, open your calendar and look at the full week ahead. Every commitment, every event, everything already on the board. Then write down the two or three things that would make that week run smoother if you handled them today. Just those two or three. That’s your starting point. The rest builds from there.
Take what’s useful. Leave the rest.