You may have heard of the phrase ‘sunday reset’, usually implying you reset your house and routines for a fresh start in the upcoming week. I don’t do resets. In our house, we do what I like to call, “sunday setups”, where we do all those things that will (hopefully) set us up for success in the upcoming week.
For me, Sunday Setups are less about wiping the slate clean and more about setting the stage. Life with a little one (and honestly, life in general) doesn’t really pause, so trying to “reset” always felt like chasing a mirage. Instead, I like to think of Sunday as a day all about reducing the friction points I know are coming and sprinkling in little moments that future-me will quietly thank present-me for.
Sunday Setups aren’t about doing everything or doing it perfectly. They’re about curating what will matter most in the coming days, the meals that will nourish us when we’re tired (and stop us from ordering in), the spaces that need to feel calm so our minds can be calm too. Sometimes that means big ambitious efforts, and sometimes it’s just clearing off the dining table and putting a clean set of sheets on the bed. Both count.
They’re also a way of acknowledging that I’m not starting the week from zero, I’m carrying forward everything already in motion. Mondays aren’t a fresh beginning, they are a fresh chapter in an ongoing story.
Every Sunday Setup looks a little bit different. They aren’t sacred or fancy. They change every week depending on how much energy we have and what life is throwing at us.
Today’s setup was a mix of routine setups and a few new things.
Meal Prep
Most Sundays, we meal prep a few lunches and dinners. Some Sundays, it’s all the breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and snacks for the week. Other days, it’s a bit less than that. It tends to depend on our energy levels and what else we plan on getting done that day.
Today we did about 4 days worth of lunches and dinners. We’ll figure out the breakfasts as we go and we’ve stocked up on some healthy snacks if we need them.
Generally speaking, I’m quicker in the kitchen so my spouse takes care of our kid and I zip around the kitchen cooking and prepping as quickly as I can. It’s usually easy because typically, on Saturday night my spouse cleans up the kitchen and readies it so I can just get going the next day.
Today, I made spatchcocked chicken on a bed of veggies, garlic steak bites with alfredo pasta, and thai green curry with some couscous.
I often reach for couscous when I don’t feel like cooking rice, because all you have to do is pour some boiling water (or stock in my case) into a bowl of couscous, cover it for 5 minutes, and it’s good to go.
Rearranging the kiddo’s room
Our kid is incredibly mobile now, and his room wasn’t really set up to give him the safest play space. He sleeps on a floor bed instead of a crib, so it’s super important that the whole room is safe for him while still suitable for the adults.
We 3D-printed socket covers for the electrical outlets, moved his change station and bed into different places, and altogether managed to not only make it safer but create more play space for him. He turns 1 on October and by then I hope to have some more kid-oriented furniture in there so he can have a fun space for independent play.
One of the most important things we did though, was swapping out my home office rug for the rug that was originally in his room. Turns out, while incredibly cute, it was really easy to pick apart and it shed constantly, which is a hazard for little kiddos that pick at every tiny thing and shove everything into their mouths. In fact, this switcheroo is what triggered all the rearranging in the first place.
It was a pending task for a few weeks, and I’m glad we took care of it.
Laundry
I hate laundry. So much. When we were childless, we use to send it out. But now we need to do laundry far too often for that to be economical. So my spouse does the sorting and washing of clothes, I do the folding and putting away of clean clothes. And no matter how often I promise myself to stay on top of it, I don’t, and on Sunday I sit there folding, hanging, and putting away a mountain of laundry so all 3 of us have things to wear in the coming week.
Cleaning up my office
I kid you not, my office has been a disaster for at least the last 2 months. You can’t see it on camera, because I have it cleverly angled to hide the chaos, but it has been awful. I put on some music and finally started to make a dent in the mess and even switched up things on my desk.
While far from done, there is at least some breathing room in the office and you can walk in without fearing for the soles of your feet.
So here I am, typing away in my slightly tidier office, house wafting with smells from meal prep, and a kiddo being put to bed by his dad upstairs. It was a good setup day. Onwards we go into Monday.