5 Weekly Habits That Have Big Rewards

From meal prep to date night with your spouse, these simple practices help to create a more intentional and balanced life.

Regular family visits build lasting bonds and keep loved ones connected across generations. bbernard/Shutterstock

Habits act as powerful forces in our lives. People often tend to focus on the impact of their daily habits, which are, of course, important. Some practices, though, need only be performed weekly to promote progress. The key in both instances is to maintain consistency.

Establishing positive habits can put the continuous improvement of your life and your capacity to serve others on autopilot. Here are five good habits that, if done weekly, are sure to enhance your life.

Date Night

If you are married, and especially if you have children, make a weekly habit of a date night. Just the thought of this might immediately bring to mind countless reasons why you can’t: It’s too expensive, you’re too busy, you don’t have a babysitter, it’s not important, or you’re tired.

The truth is, if you can understand the positive impact that this can have on your relationship and your family, you might find the capacity to make a date night a priority and overcome any excuse. A date night need not be elaborate or expensive, but it needs to be time that you spend alone with your spouse reconnecting, communicating, and appreciating each other’s company. It can breathe new life into your existence as individuals and as a couple, and you’ll also provide an excellent model for your children.

Once a week, date your spouse.

Meal Prep

It’s both economically beneficial and better for your health and the health of your family if you cook the majority of your meals at home. Busy lives can lead us to believe that it just isn’t feasible to get into the kitchen and whip up a culinary masterpiece three times a day. That’s not the way to go about it.

The best way to ensure that your family is enjoying healthy, home-cooked meals each day is to prepare your meals once a week.

Meal prep includes deciding what you’ll make for the coming week, ordering groceries, and prepping meals, or their components, in one day. You can strategically chop ingredients such as onions or garlic that may feature in more than one meal. You can use the same ingredient for different dishes. Perhaps Monday’s grilled chicken will be repurposed for Friday’s chicken parmigiana. Perhaps one night you’ll have hearty salads for which you simply need to have prepped toppings on hand.

With a little forethought, you can batch the work of cooking for the week and ensure that your family has plenty of healthy options each day without spending every waking moment in the kitchen.

Family Visits

If you’re lucky enough to live near your extended family, make a point of visiting. Whether you invite them to your home or you head out to see them, make a weekly practice of connecting in person with those you love.

Weekly Review

Before a new week gets underway, take an overview of the obligations, responsibilities, goals, and hopes that you’ve got for the week ahead. This can be an invaluable exercise if performed once a week.

By calmly and without urgency considering all of the ways that you can make the coming week great, you’ll set yourself up for success. You might recall something important, think of a better way to tackle something else, or realize that there’s something you actually don’t have to do. An hour after work on Friday or in the evening on Sunday can be a great time to consider the week ahead and set a plan in place.

Will all go according to your plan? Not likely. But you’ll get closer to the target than you otherwise would have. Doing this consistently can allow your life trajectory to improve immensely.

Sabbath

Western religious traditions maintain the practice of keeping the Sabbath—a weekly day of rest devoid of work and commerce and centered on reflection, prayer, and family. There is wisdom in this practice—in stepping away from the day-to-day grind, in resting one’s mind, heart, and spirit, in focusing time and attention on those we hold dear, in the act of personal introspection and spiritual development, and in manifesting one’s ability to discipline oneself consistently, on a weekly basis.

While you may be concerned that a day of rest would negatively affect your ability to tackle all of your responsibilities, you might just find that allowing yourself a weekly chance to reset and refresh your mind and spirit allows you to perform even more effectively in all of the roles that you’ve taken on in life. Such a practice is the kind that compounds over time, so give it a chance and see if your day of rest doesn’t become one of the best parts of each week.