Meal planning, like budgeting and clipping coupons is one of those tasks that I always groan at. However, meal planning does make a mom’s life easier, not just in knowing what to make for dinner each night, but in grocery shopping as well. When you know what you’re going to serve, you know what to buy.

Over at KitchenMonki.com you can get help with the process of menu planning. Add your own recipes, use them to meal plan, and even print out a shopping list. KitchenMonki.com also has a social aspect in that you can share or get meal plans and recipes from others.

The site is free to use so check out KitchenMonki.com and start meal planning.

As you know, I’m a productivity nut because I’m organizationally challenged. I’m always look for great resources to keep all my tasks, notes and other materials accessible. SpringPadIt.com is a new web-based notebook site that offers all this and more. Much like Google Notes or OneNote, you can create a variety of notes to organize tasks and projects. It offers a variety of premade templates such as budget tracker and fitness tracker. A clipping feature lets you clip notes or recipes to save in your note book.  Springpadit also lets you flag (for priority), tag (for easy search), and write note on your notes. It offers drag and drop functionality to move your notes and items around for easy access. A big plus for me is that you can see all your tasks in one place across a variety of notes.

Because its a web-based program, you can also access other web-based resources such as restaurants, contacts, and maps. You can share your notes with others (with other users or through Facebook, Twitter and email) and have reminders emailed or texted (sms) to you or one of your contacts.

My only beef with the program is that I haven’t found a gadget to add it to iGoogle, and it doesn’t look like I can text notes into the program from my phone. But for a free service its very robust and easy to use.

Check out SpringPadIt to learn more.

It is possible to much of your grocery shopping online. But if you don’t live in a delivery area for one of the grocery stores that deliver, you still need to go to the market to get fresh items.

I hate grocery shopping. The very worst part is the unloading and putting the items away. But I also don’t like the actual shopping. I can’t find thing I need and almost always forget something.

Dave Cheong had a similar problem and he found a way to fix it. He created at the grocery shopping helper which is an online program that can help you organize your shopping trip by providing you with a list of all the items you buy sorted by the isles they are found in. No more back tracking or hunting. Simply take the list, mark the items you want to buy, and head straight to the store and isle.

You do need to do a little leg work before using the program by creating the list of items and visiting the store to find out what isle they are in. But once done, it could save you loads of time in the grocery store.

Check out the Grocery Shopping Helper here.

When it comes to managing my life, particularly if I’m way from my computer, if I can skip or speed up a step I’m more likely to stay on top of things. Google Calendar allows me to quickly add events from my phone through SMS.  I simply scroll to Google in my contact list and choose the option to send an SMS, type my appointment and hit send. Google even texts back that the appointment was received.

To set up the mobile option with Google Calendar:

1. Visit your Google Calendar online.
2. Click on the “Settings” option.
3. Click on “Mobile Set up”
4. Check to see if your Carrier is supported.
5. Enter your country and phone number, and then click “Send Verification Code”
6. You’ll receive a message back with a verification number. Enter that number in the “Verification Code” field on in the mobile settings on your calendar. (If you don’t receive the code, you can request it again through the Mobile Set up in the Settings.)
7. Click “Finish Set-up”.

To send a text of a new appointment:

1. Add Google Calendar’s SMS number to your contacts 48368
2. Send a text to the SMS number. Enter the appointment, date and time for example “Dinner 3/4 8pm” or “Soccer Saturday 10am”
3. Google Calendar will text back that it received the appointment.

You can also have Google Calendar text your appointments to you. To receive the next item on your appointment schedule text “next” (without the quotes) to 48368.  Text “day” to get the day’s appointments or “nday” to get tomorrow’s schedule.

Now I just need to find a good to-do list program that also allows me to text things I need to get done.