A while back, I put off creating a grocery list and instead made several trips to the store throughout the week. I thought it worked out pretty well, so I did it again the next week. By the third week, I was tired of the inefficiency and sat down to plan my menus.
Here’s my new theory: planning menus is like planning what to wear during the week. If I can preempt multiple rushed trips to the grocery store, I can also preempt multiple panic-stricken visits to my closet during the week. I usually know by Sunday what my calendar holds. If I take time today to decide what to wear to each event, I can find out ahead of time what needs washing or ironing and what looks good with what. I can also take care of issues like the one I wrote about in September.
This is not natural for me. It reminds me too much of packing, which I hate. Because it’s a big change, it’s going to be my one self-improvement goal for the month.
Hope you don't mind my adding a few cents' worth of advice in.
1) Meal planning allows you to make better use of leftovers and fresh vegetables
2) Corollary: Most of my failures tend to occur when a specific meal needs to be made a specific day in order for everything to work out– invariably one or both of us won't be in the mood for it if that's the case. Adding flex days or a few pantry meals into the mix to be rearranged is super helpful.
I think the need for spontaneity is what keeps me from planning ahead. By the way, my analogy falls apart in that with grocery lists, you can just go out and buy want you want. With wardrobe lists, you must work with what you already have because the items you WANT are so expensive.